For America's children the education program is often literally a lottery

For America's young children the education method is often literally a lottery. Which is the main message of a brand new documentary about America's schools, "Waiting for superman" It can be intended to make a surge in public assistance for education reform no less than as good as the clamour to do a thing about climate alter generated by Al Gore's eco-disaster flick.
The timing could hardly be greater. The "jobless recovery" is lastly bringing dwelling to Americans the fact that too quite a few of people that go via its schools are incapable of earning a decent living in an increasingly competitive global economic climate. In spite of its depressing enumeration in the failure of so many stone crusher schools, its miserable ending, along with the bleakness of its title, the movie also has a message of hope: you will discover very good schools and teachers in America, whose strategies could make its education method as superior as any in the world.
That truth, recognized by any person who has spent even a couple of hours in, say, a KIPP charter school, is an inconvenient a single to the teacher's unions. By way of example, the film capabilities efforts to reform the school program in Washington, DC, led by Adrian Fenty, the mayor, and Michelle Rhee, his combative schools chief, such as a scene exactly where Ms Rhee's supply to double salaries for teachers in exchange for them giving up tenure and accepting performance-related wages is rejected by the unions. Correct on cue for the launch from the film.
The teachers' unions have resolutely opposed efforts to pay excellent teachers more than mediocre ones, to fire the worst performers, and to shut down rock crusher schools that consistently fail to deliver a decent education. This, coupled with underfunding in poor locations, has resulted in a shortage of excellent schools; so the couple of that worth acquiring into are hugely oversubscribed. Ms Rhee upset the unions by refusing to accept all this, closing dozens of schools and firing 1,000 teachers.
Maybe one of the most crucial factor about "Waiting for superman" is the fact that it is liberal, Al Gore-friendly forms that are highlighting the reality the teacher's unions are putting their worst-performing members just before the interests of America's kids. Class war may be about to break our within the Democrats. Teachers' union members are a vocal group within the party; but its rising stars-such as Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, who has just persuaded Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, to donate $100m to strengthen the city's schools-are producing school reform a priority.
To be fair, the unions will not be all negative. As Bill Gates has pointed out, they are taking part in an initiative funded by his foundation to develop new measures of teacher efficiency. Furthermore, he notes, reform can't succeed with out the support with the majority of teachers. Even so, the reality is the fact that the teachers' unions are the major obstacle to reform-which presents top Democrats, and above all, Barack Obama, with a essential test: will they be willing to confront a core element of their membership inside the interests of America's young children? Mr Obama has gone additional than several expected in pushing school reform. If he has any doubt as to which side he ought to become on, he have to have only ask that bellwether of public opinion, his old friend Oprah Winfrey. She recently invited Ms Rhee onto her show, where the audience gave her a standing ovation.