Panel Discusses Ways To Improve Education In Wake Of "Waiting For Superman' Documentary

From The Dallas Morning News and The Heritage Foundation:

Panel discusses ways to improve education in wake of 'Waiting for Superman' film



12:00 AM CDT on Friday, October 1, 2010

By HOLLY K. HACKER / The Dallas Morning News

hhacker@dallasnews.com

The new documentary Waiting for Superman portrays urban public schools as caldrons of failure and charter schools as beacons of promise.



The reality, local education and civic leaders say, is far more nuanced.



"We've got a lot to learn from charters," State Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, said at a special film screening and discussion Wednesday at the Magnolia Theatre. At the same time, he said, "some reform is certainly in order."



Anchia joined a Dallas school board trustee, a college president and a business representative on a panel to discuss Waiting for Superman, which officially opens in Dallas today.



The film follows five children trying to escape their struggling neighborhood schools for a more promising charter school, which is publicly funded but privately run. The charter schools in the movie have far more applicants than open seats, so they hold lotteries.



Critics say Superman oversimplifies the problems in public education, and that it unfairly demonizes teacher unions and lionizes charter schools. (Charter schools typically have more power than traditional public schools to fire teachers and set salaries.)



Love or hate the movie, one thing is clear: Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim, has sparked a national conversation on public education and charter schools much like his 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth did with global warming.



Edwin Flores, the Dallas ISD trustee on the panel, said Dallas public schools could learn a lot from successful charters such as Irving-based Uplift Education and Houston-based KIPP. Those charters, which work mainly with low-income and minority students, run longer class days and school years.



If DISD doesn't offer more diverse education options, he predicted that in 10 years, the district could lose the vast majority of its students to charter schools.



Anchia said charter schools need greater state oversight, preferably by an independent commission and not the Texas State Board of Education.



"What's really hurting the Uplifts and KIPPs of the world are the bad operators in the marketplace," he said.



The film inspired Children At Risk, a Houston nonprofit that advocates for children, to examine charter school performance in Texas.



The group concluded in a new report: "While charters may offer some of our state's 'superheroes,' many others – if not most – are underperforming." The report also cited common practices of high-achieving charter schools, including more instruction time, a demanding curriculum, a college-going culture and strong parent commitment.



At the University of Texas at Austin, education researcher Ed Fuller did his own charter school analysis, focusing on middle schools. He found that many top-rated charter schools lost a large share of their students over time. He found that those students tended to be lower-performing, leaving the better performers at the charter schools.



Fuller said, "Many students who remain in the schools do very well, but the evidence certainly suggests that expanding these charters will not substantially impact the education of the majority of students living in the urban communities that suffer from decades of unemployment and poverty."