Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute has words of wisdom for those in the school choice movement who are eager to celebrate “Waiting for Superman,” a pro-charter school documentary from the guy who directed “An Inconvenient Truth.”
“In recent years, we’ve cracked the code. The high-performing charter schools, like KIPP and others, have figured out the system that works for kids in even the toughest neighborhoods.” -Davis Guggenheim
My pal Mike Petrilli has already ably addressed the hubris, banality, and, well, painful ignorance in that quote. I’ll only add that, if Guggenheim or any of today’s reformers think they’re the first to decide that we’ve finally “solved” this challenge, they might want to acquaint themselves with the musings of Ron Edmonds or Ellwood Cubberley, or more recent, less-than-inspiring experiences with comprehensive school reform and small high schools.
An admission: I had thought about spiking the following column. I wondered whether it was too mean and gratuitous a shot at a well-intentioned exercise. But Monday’s Oprah spectacle, Guggenheim’s declarations, and the continuing barrage from would-be reformers hawking Waiting for Superman and promoting a goopy groupthink symbiosis with the Paramount marketing operation leave me thinking that large doses of cynicism are in order.
I’ll admit it. I’d been skeptical of the import of Waiting for Superman even though it’d been made clear by plenty of self-styled reform commandants that all good “reformers” are supposed to link to, mention, and celebrate the movie as often as possible. Indeed, major foundations have decided that the movie’s release makes this “the moment” to fix American education–you know, given that director Davis Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth already prompted us to solve our climate change worries.
I highly recommend reading his entire column, available here.
