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Easy to Govern, But Impossible to Enslave

By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trailers | Comments (13)

waitingforsuperman.png

Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes, we need gigantic revolutionary changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense. That is my position. I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet. -Aaron Sorkin

There are very very few things that get the kind of cross-spectrum political agreement that education does. Left, right, urban, rural, we actually agree that schools matter. Of course that’s probably why our schools tend to suck so much. Anything you can get the electorate to agree on has no electoral traction. Davis Guggenheim, director of An Inconvenient Truth (and there went half the voters) has a new documentary on the sad state of American public schools called Waiting for Superman. Trailer below.


Making a documentary that is already preaching to a choir that encompasses just about everybody in the country takes a bit of skill, because it’s hard to find something to really hook you on. Kids are dumber than they used to be, the books are falling apart, the teachers are underpaid, drugs, pregnancy, drop outs, gangs. Yeah, yeah, we know those things are bad, but you know, we’ve seen Law and Order and those things just don’t surprise us. But that lottery? That’s a hook for a documentary. Fuck, that’s the kind of thing that would get me personally pissed off if the documentary was about schools in some shitpot with a primary export of sand and a political system based on reading insect entrails. But in America?


Think about every problem, every challenge we face. The solution to each starts with education. -George H.W. Bush









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Comments

People always like celebrities, but I think those in uniform deserve more respect. They defend our country and safeguard our policy. Join M i l i t a r y f l i r t i n g.c o m, show your love and respect to our military heroes.

Posted by: lily at May 10, 2010 10:13 AM

My kids spend far too much time preparing and taking Istep tests than they do actually learning the material. Our kids are woefully unprepared to be competing in a global market when it seems all these schools do is administer standardized tests to justify continued funding.

Posted by: TylerDFC at May 10, 2010 10:21 AM

the teachers are under paid...we know those things are bad

Tell that to the new governor of New Jersey who thinks they're overpaid. In his mind, it is overspending on benefits in education and tenured salaries that has put the state in debt. The NJ education system is fucked right now thanks to the mass exodus of tenured teachers jumping ship to save their benefits so they can keep living in NJ. And my friends are screwed because chances are, the newly hired teachers in expendable subjects (art, music, theater) are not being hired again next year if the budgets aren't approved by individual towns.

I'm already big on documentaries and I can't wait for Waiting for Superman. When I first learned about that lottery system a few months ago, I was shocked. I'm hoping this is An Inconvenient Truth/Michael Moore sized hit so more people are willing to turn up to those budget-determining elections in their communities.

Posted by: Robert at May 10, 2010 10:32 AM

Like I always say:

No matter what's going on or what you're saying, as long as there's some bush waiting at the end, I'm game.

Posted by: Kballs at May 10, 2010 10:51 AM

America loves education, hates the educated and despises paying for anything.

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at May 10, 2010 10:59 AM

Sometimes I think that most of my comments are just me thanking SLW for posting. It's always "Thanks for keeping us updated on Torchwood news" or "Thanks for recognizing the awesomeness of The Astonishing X-Men!" Well, thanks for using that Sam Seaborn quote, SLW. It's what I think of during education discussions, too, and Sam was totally my first fictional crush (I was nine). If I were to examine predictors of whether or not I read an article, I'd guess that the binary variable "Written by SLW" would be signifcant at a p

/studying for stat final

Posted by: esme at May 10, 2010 11:10 AM

There is an old Chinese saying, "Weapons are inauspicious instruments; not the tools of the enlightened." (Tao-te Ching) When you take money away from enlightening citizens, and put it in producing weaponry, it is not surprising that schools will suffer. Add to that a careful cultivation of a culture of militarism, and we get the mess we're in now.

Posted by: KV at May 10, 2010 11:31 AM

And Good Luck, esme, on your finals!

Posted by: KV at May 10, 2010 11:32 AM

To Robert:
I live in NJ. The governer is trying to deal with a budget gap of BILLIONS. He asked the teachers to not take an increase in salary and thousands of jobs could have been saved. Their answer: NO.
I work in the private sector. There have been no increases in 18 months. 33% of our staff was cut, not because of greed, but because of lost revenue. WE ARE IN A MASSIVE RECESSION. Who would even have the nerve to expect a raise? There is NO MONEY. Should I tell my boss I can't possibly do my job without a raise? Every single person I know in the private sector has the same story. Most of are lucky to even have a job. What ivory tower do these people live in, that they think raises should happen, regardless of the state of the economy? It sickens me. Only government workers seem to lack this basic understanding of economics.
My boss ASKED us a year ago, if we could handle not getting raises - if we would still work hard for the team. We all answered YES.

Posted by: Calvinthebold at May 10, 2010 12:55 PM

Left, right, urban, rural, we actually agree that schools matter.
Sadly that's not so true. There's a coalition in my home town that calls themselves "back to basics," that's basically made it their mission to reduce spending on education as much as possible. They tried to cut all extracurricular activities and arts and music education. They tried to block the district from building a new middle school to replace a school building that had been CONDEMNED (they fortunately failed on that one). They have so far successfully prevented construction at one of the high schools which doesn't have enough classrooms and which has rooms that are unusable because they're falling apart. Some classes are being held in trailers set up in the parking lot. As backwards as C-town is I bet it's not the only place where this kind of bullshit goes down.

Posted by: dr. pisaster at May 10, 2010 1:46 PM

Is there a thing lately in elementary school where parents are expected to check their child's homework and correct it?
So, my mom's boss was going over her kid's homework and telling him which answers to fix. My mother, curious, asked her what she was doing. And she said that the teachers actually demand this. My mother was shocked. I'm shocked. If the kid gets help at home and comes in with all right answers, how is that determining if he understands the material or not? I've asked a few other people with children this age (in Slidell, Louisiana anyway) and they all tell me this is how it works now.
Seriously? I NEVER got that kind of help. If I got a bad grade, it told me I had to study more. It also let the teacher know what I wasn't understanding.
Someone explain this to me? I'm all for parent involvement, that come on.

Also, the documentary looks great and I can't wait to see it.

Posted by: MyySharona at May 10, 2010 7:01 PM

I'm totally stealing this line:

America loves education, hates the educated and despises paying for anything.

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at May 10, 2010 10:59 AM

Posted by: logan at May 11, 2010 11:45 AM

At the very least, it should be a good film for those around the world who don't know too much about the US education system, but are horrified by what they do know about it.

Posted by: csb at May 12, 2010 6:36 AM