Waiting for Superman: Film Review Waiting for Superman, “directed” by Davis Guggenheim, is a 2010 documentary, just under two hours, about Guggenheim’s exploration of America’s education system. Throughout his documentary, Guggenheim discovers that America’s education has become unhealthy in many ways. He focuses on five individuals being impacted due to this shattered system, and the process of the lottery. Waiting for Superman exemplifies the effect of poverty on students living in California and New York. These underprivileged kids, who do not have the choice as to what kind of school they attend, have the lowest test scores across the world. This can be related to the disadvantage they have due to attending unsuccessful public schools. …show more content…
He started his own charter school for poverty stricken students, with the intention of fixing the education system. Eventually, he had the best scoring students with the highest level of improvement. Schools like Geoffrey’s have been opened in many poor communities in hopes of pulling these students out of the dropout statistics they would face otherwise, these schools are called Kipp schools. As a way out of their failing school systems, and into Kipp schools, students are able to enter a lottery. This system, gives students the opportunity to be randomly drawn from hundreds of other names, for the opportunity to attend a school designed for lower opportune children. The five children identified in the movie enter the lottery, and must deal with the fear that they may never escape the bad educational system that they were unluckily born into. Guggenheim included many statistics in the film in the form of visual representations. These visuals explained key terms such as dropout factories, academic sinkholes, and differences between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ teachers. The visuals made the statistics easy to understand and visibly enjoyable. The film stuck with the same theme of animation throughout the visual reputations as well, which made it neat, tidy, and easily