Is the wait for ‘Superman’ over? — from HuffingtonPost.com by Jasmine Boussem
This moving and instructive documentary follows the lives of five children in their demanding search for a better education. Though each story is unique, every kid shares an anxious desire to be accepted by a high-performing charter school, in order to avoid the trap of low-performing schools known as “drop out factories.” The odds they face are daunting. The number of applications to charter schools often far outweigh available openings, so in an ironic attempt to be fair, these schools resort to a lottery system to decide who gets in and who doesn’t, leaving those that lose out to an education more likely to fail them than not.
The bitter reality of the lottery scene makes it one of the most powerful in the movie. While the numbers are drawn, the kids and their parents look on, their faces a complex blend of hope, fear and trepidation. However young the children, it is clear that they are fully aware that their future could hinge on whether or not they win the lottery.
The idea that the quality of a child’s education should depend on geography or luck is difficult to swallow. Clearly, something’s rotten in the state of public education. While the film does not pretend to have all the answers, it does suggest some of the factors that are responsible for stifling much needed innovation and reform, as well as offering some possible solutions.