Waiting for Superman

So, Oprah wants you to go see this movie. And since she's doing at least two shows (today's and Friday's) about this movie's theme, I think there's a good chance this thing sees box office gold. That is the power of Oprah. Just one reason I have money as the background image for this blog.

The movie is Waiting for Superman. And I have no idea how to deal with that from a stylistic standpoint, since the website for the movie both italicizes and puts quotes around Superman. So I'm at a loss, which means I'm leaving it in standard text form. Regardless, the movie, a documentary, centers on the crumbling (or perhaps already ruined) state of our nation's educational system.

I saw the trailer for this movie a couple of months ago, right before I saw the worst movie ever made, The Kids Are Alright. Seriously, do not get me started on that movie. You will never hear the end of it.

Davis Guggenheim, the man who brought you An Inconvenient Truth (which I liked, but which I thought was mislabeled, in that it wasn't so much a documentary as it was a nicely done PowerPoint presentation), directed this film, and he joined Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee (Chancellor of Public Schools for D.C.) to discuss the problem.

I don't want to recap this one blow-by-blow because it just seems unnecessary. We don't need Oprah to tell us that kids aren't getting educated in the United States of America; Jersey Shore should tell us everything we need to know.

The point of the film, and of Oprah's show, is that something needs to be done about the lack of effective teachers. Or, more specifically, about the difficulty school boards have in firing ineffective teachers. Tenure is an ugly bitch, and apparently public school teachers get it just for showing up for two years. That's great for the good ones, but for those who don't care, it's the children who pay the price. Michelle Rhee is no-nonsense about this stuff. She's fired a bunch of teachers and principals in D.C. and she's shut down some schools. Oprah called her a "warrior woman," which was the same term she used for that nearly limbless woman from Friday's show. Did I miss when this became a real term? Or is that just an Oprah thing?

Oprah spent a lot of time in this one attempting to engage the audience. But it's weird the way she makes this effort. I've seen enough clips of old Oprah to know that she used to actually go into the audience and hold the microphone in the faces of those who wanted to ask questions. Does that ever happen anymore? Now it just seems like all Oprah does is implore the audience to indicate that they agree with her. There is an awful lot of, "Didn't you think this was true?" or "Don't you agree about that?" happening, and it was especially prevalent in this episode.



So, obviously, the school system is in need of a major overhaul. And Bill Gates and Oprah want to lead the way, which is not a bad idea. Someone has to do it. And the audience sure seems on board, but of course they're going to be when they're sitting in legendary Harpo Studios, watching Oprah get passionate right in front of their very eyes.

The problem is when Oprah says things like, "We're all in this together. It doesn't matter if your kids are in a good school." Wrong. If that were the case, we wouldn't have this problem to begin with, because everyone would have gotten together to do something about it long ago. Rich people (generally Republicans) think their children are in good schools because they deserve to be, because their parents worked hard and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and didn't take handouts and blah, blah, blah. Anyone not in those schools is lazy, or came from lazy parents. Or they're black. Those in the position of power truly believe that being born American means that every single one of us was provided with the exact same opportunities, and it's your own fault if you haven't figured out a way to use those opportunities to your advantage. Tearing down the wall around those people is the issue. Getting people to give a shit is the issue. The vast majority of people, particularly those who are capable of doing something about this mess, just plain don't care about anyone else, and until that changes, we're not getting anywhere on the education issue.

Which is not to say that I don't appreciate Oprah making the effort. I believe that she is genuinely concerned about this, and I hope that her advocacy can make a difference. She wants people to see this movie and have an "aha moment" about the school system. Good idea; terribly queer phrase. Incidentally, when I searched to see if "aha moment" should involve a hyphen, I found out there was actually a legal battle over that slogan. Geez. Talk about queer.

Oprah highlighted six good charter school systems today, then dried up the now defunct "Angel Network" by giving each of those systems a cool mil a piece. Not too shabby, but it did make me wonder why charter schools got the money instead of any public school district. I guess I tend to think charter schools have the money they need for the students they have. I realize it's probably a constant process of fundraising, but the good charter schools are good because they're able to tap into an income source. The bad public schools are bad because, in large part, the districts have no money. This was my thought process and when I logged on to Facebook after the show, my friend Jenn, who is a first grade teacher, had this as her status update:

wishes Oprah would give millions to regular old public schools, you know the schools in your neighborhood...

I guess the bottom line is, every school needs money. And Oprah can't give it to all of them, so it's up to us to start figuring out how best to save our country's future.

Of course, Oprah promised that on Friday's show (which will be live in Chicago), she will have an announcement that will "shake up public education." So maybe the announcement is that she's taking every cent she's ever earned and dividing it equally among the 50 states, for use in the school systems.

But probably not.

John Legend was randomly on toward the end of the show, both to hype the fact that he wrote and performed "Shine," which is the theme song for the documentary, and to insult me. Oprah announced that John Legend believes this education crisis is "the civil rights issue of our time." And Oprah agrees. That's funny, because I thought we had an actual civil rights issue already. Or did I gain the right to enter into a same-sex marriage that would be recognized at the federal level, and just miss the memo? I guess access to education falls into the category of civil rights, just like gay rights,  and I don't want to get into a debate about what is more important. But I will say that I don't know if there's a point in emphasizing education in a country where all those children will grow up believing they're all treated equally under the law, when that's not true if they also happen to be gay. All of us were lied to in that regard, whether we went to private, public, or charter schools.


I learned today that I really shouldn't fast forward just because Oprah says, "We'll be right back." There is almost always some promo that I should be watching. And if I hadn't paid attention today, I might not know that Tuesday's guests are Jon Stewart and Liza Minnelli. I don't know who gets me more excited, but since it's unlikely Liza will be doing bits from Arrested Development, I'll go with Jon Stewart.