When the Lights Come Up on Waiting for Superman, Here’s What Teachers Need

Waiting for Superman hits theaters in several major cities this week before its wide release next month. Moviegoers everywhere will be transfixed by the emotional journeys of five families seeking a great education for their vulnerable kids. I saw the film twice this summer— opportunities I received because I teach at the SEED Public Charter School, one of the schools celebrated in the film.

The five students followed by Waiting for Superman all hope to get into charter schools, which admit by lottery. Not every kid gets what he or she wants; it’s heartbreaking.

 

 

When the lights come up, I think a lot of people will be flooded with feeling, but not sure how to take action. The end credits encourage viewers to sign up for a text message feed. The film also strongly insinuates that the public education system is utterly broken and the solutions are found in bolting the system to privately-run, publicly funded, non-unionized charter schools.

Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim, holds up my school, SEED, as an exemplar of opportunity and success for educating at-risk youth, but really only portrays it through the admissions process. Teachers and classrooms aren’t spotlighted.

SEED, a tuition-free college-prep, five-day-a-week boarding school, located in Southeast D.C., is an outstanding example of what charter schools are meant for; it’s an innovative alternative to a traditional public school and a place for responsibly experimenting with new models of wrap-around services. It currently serves around 325 students in Washington, D.C. and there’s a new SEED School in Baltimore that is several years away from growing to its full scale.

 

I love my job teaching English at SEED, and I receive the space and support to excel at it.  So what makes it work? Many of the most important parts are replicable en masse in the public system:

1. Teachers are accountable without feeling terrorized.

My principal, assistant principal, and instructional coach observe my class, both formally and informally, multiple times throughout the year. They read my lesson plans every week. They monitor trends on my interim assessment data. They talk to my students and my students’ families. They are engaging, highly competent people with high expectations and backgrounds in the classroom. No SEED teacher ever feels that there is one test or one data point that could potentially destroy our careers.

2. Teachers feel ownership over our teaching.

If I can justify what the standards-based educational value of what I’m planning, my principal trusts me to do it. No scripted lesson plans. Order class sets of contemporary novels for literature units? Done. Help me set up partnerships with external organizations? Done with enthusiasm. (Through the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program, visiting authors come to my classes. Through the Shakespeare Theatre Company, my students study and perform a Shakespeare play under the tutelage of pros.) The opportunity to conceive and then actually follow through on bringing exciting ideas to life energizes me throughout the long haul of the school year.

3. The school helps us to become better teachers each year.

Last year, SEED— in partnership with the Center for Teaching Quality— offered the Take One! program for free to any interested teacher. Take One! is a warm-up for applying for National Board Certification, a truly rigorous and craft-elevating endeavor. I’m currently working towards full certification (which costs $2,500) and the school is happily paying for it. They view it as an investment.

Two summers ago I attended a weeklong professional development workshop for new AP Literature teachers at Goucher College. It helped my practice tremendously—my students’ AP exam scores increased 36% the year after I took the workshop. It also cost about $1,100 dollars, which the school covered. Most SEED teachers have similar stories about transformational professional development, almost always subsidized by SEED.

My supervisors, colleagues and I are on the same team, and we need each other to succeed.

There’s a lot that many in the public system can learn from how SEED operates— but that doesn’t mean that SEED or other charters ought to supplant the entire system serving 50 million students.

 

Public schools badly need improvement. But to me, that doesn’t mean damning them to oblivion or running for the hills of privatization, away from the possibility of improving the existing infrastructure. Some charter schools — not all, many are disasters — can offer useful practices to share.

Waiting for Superman says that SEED has answers. I’ve listed here several on-the-ground good ones that policy makers and public school administrators ought to heed.

Comments

[RDE2700]

Actually, charters were never intended to be an alternative to public schools. They were originally intended to be singular laboratories in which innovations could be tried and if successful replicated in ALL schools. The idea they should compete with each other was an effort by the neo-liberal economists/policymakers/lobbyists to create a new educational marketplace that could easily be dominated by the private sector. So now schools are in competition and do not share best practices or resources. What are we teaching the children?

[Melissa]

Mr. Dan Brown, you write in your article what I've always said about charters. "So what makes it [his charter school] work? Many of the most important parts are replicable en masse in the public system". Charters aren't doing anything public schools can't do...they just have the resources and freedom to experiment (which was why charters were originally started by progressives in the '90s). Let the good ones share their best practices with the publicly-run public schools so ALL children can receive a good education. Don't give up on public schools.

[Melissa]

Mr. Brown...one more thing. Any chance of seeing this article in the Post or the New York Times? I'm already tired of seeing this movie lauded so highly. Millions of people will see it and think there are no good public schools or public school teachers in this country. Your message needs to get out there.

[Lonni Gill, Ph.D.]

I applaud all of the teachers who know how to teach children in multiple ways to reach diverse learners.

I find it appalling that "scripted curricula" is the purported answer to urban schools while affluent schools in some cases, as well as charter schools are freer to teach more critical thinking skills, as if ALL learners don't need to know how to think. We used to be able to do this in our neighborhood elementary schools.

I have experienced this firsthand, as an elementary teacher who was encouraged to grow professionally and learn ways to teach ALL children; then being directed to more tightly controlled teaching methods with high-stakes tests.

For this reason, I left the elementary classroom and continued my journey to get a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction; which has resulted in teaching new teachers methods of teaching in elementary education.

We need all teachers to teach with methods that reach all of our learners in public schools.

[DanBrown]

Dr. Gill,

Thanks for your comment! Where do you work?

-Dan

[Mrob]

aside from accountability, which is present in public schools as well as charters, the other things on your list are all about having enough money to pay for teachers attending professional development activities and bringing programs into the schools--how will these things be brought into public schools when large amounts of money are being redirected from public school budgets into supporting charter schools?

[Carolyn Foote]

Dan,

Your post was excellent, and you're right, all these things are achievable.

I think one of the most important things you mentioned and that bears repeating often, is how the system of the school supported your efforts without creating an obstacle course.

Too often schools become paternalistic in nature or fearful and don't trust teachers to do a professional job.

Administrations that are there to best support their teachers (from campus to district level) and know how to say yes, first, can make an incredible difference in the effectiveness, creativity, and actually increase teacher productivity(because then the teacher isn't spending as much time dealing with bureaucratic issues.) Too often, no matter where we are in the system, we lose sight (due to politics, bureacracy, testing, etc.) of what we are really here for, teaching and mentoring students.

This isn't a function of public/private, but just a function, as you say, that any school can manage with the vision to manage it.

Thanks again. I hope this is widely shared as the movie is released.

[Stacey]

Certainly you work for a stellar charter school that is worth commendation. However, not all charters, and certainly not all public schools, have the funding that SEED does for things like National Board Certification and class sets of novels whenever they're requested. It takes money, as well as commitment from dedicated educators, to make a school work.
My question is this:
Where will the money come from so that all schools will be able to operate like the one in which you teach?

[Karen Rowan]

The money should come from the same place charter schools get it from... tax dollars. Charter schools receive public funding by student. The are often held inside of public school buildings. In addition, they are often supported by foundations, which could easily support public schools instead. It's all theoretically possible. When a student leaves a public school to attend a charter school, the money goes along with him or her. Per-pupil funding is the same, but the number of students is lower, so teachers are let go, programs are cut, maintenance is postponed. Consequences. Please correct anything that is incorrect in your state. This may be state by state.

[Lori Jackson]

Scripted programs and all the workbooks don't come cheap. Money may be tight for many school systems, but a closer look at what is being valued (purchased) would certainly free up funding for innovation. The current climate, certainly fueled by this documentary, is not conducive to the kind of innovation and best practice you clearly strive for. You are a lucky man.

[Cindy Grau]

Please, please, please send this to the Post. Someone other than Randi Weingarten needs to be defending the teaching profession.

[Mary Tedrow]

I teach in public schools and have been lucky enough to have been in systems that supported professional development. The programs afforded to me have dried up in the current budget cuts. I have attended two week long AP workshops, fully paid for. I also was supported in a five-week National Writing Project Summer Institute. Both programs have resulted in higher achievement for my students. Unfortunately, that kind of support is only offered to a few. We need to grow strong teachers and that will take both money and trust. BTW, I paid the full $2,500 for national board certification. No funding for that when I went through.

[teacherken]

Dan (whom I consider a friend) and all-

1. Some charter schools have more $/student than do public schools because of outside funds.

2. when money is tight in public schools, funding for professional development is often the first thing to go. The system where I teach is currently facing a financial crisis and the additional stipends for a number of things - NBCT, PhD, Special ED - have at least for now been cut. Put 4 days furlough on top of that and increased class sizes (my 3 APs are currently at 36, 39 and 38) and one can see LOTS of problems that can flow from that. And I teach 6 classes/day.

3. I did my training for AP Government also at Goucher - in my case BEFORE I taught AP Gov. I do not think someone should take on an AP class without the one week of training, because the nature of the course and the exam is very different even than most honors courses.

BTW - the friendship and respect Dan and I have for each other is proof that those in charters and those in regular public schools are not necessarily enemies.

[kmlisle]

I teach at a public school that provides all the supports and trust for its teachers that Dan refers to. NBCTs in our district help with that professional development as a volunteers when times get tough. Last year I helped do in-depth training for our new science standards as a volunteer and a member of the standards writing committee. My own school's staff is about 10% NBCT teachers because of financial support once offered for that certification - now gone with the funding crisis. Our Title one school has test scores in the middle to high range compared to our district and the state. But these stories will not be in the theaters or in the national media and charters are relegated to the other side of the abyss between public and charter schools created by the "reform movement". What I see here in Florida are charter schools becoming real-estate development scams which are taking advantage of a tax loophole to make money for wall street and developers at the expense of parents and school districts who are often left with multimillion dollar bills to pay when the scam becomes unsustainable. There is no accountability for charter finances here and in many other places. I would like to hear from Dan how your charter is run. Is the foundation that runs your charter controlled by developers and/or fund managers? Or are the people involved truly interested in educating children like I am sure you are and like 99% of the staff in my district and school are.
I just know that I teach in a excellent public school where we greet all children with open arms and are their advocates for success. I see every one around me working for that end and I believe that my school is not that remarkable and that there are tens of thousands of public school serving tens of millions of children just like mine, despite reform. But I never see those stories in the media.

[Joanne Lockwood White]

Ownership is the key. Master teachers (energetic and creative) can do a lot unless they are forced into "the script" style of teaching. My 9-year failing school has nothing but scripts that are so boring and irrelevant to our setting that I can do nothing but weep. The master teachers, rookies and deadbeats are all treated the same.

[leslie richmond]

Dan-
Just wanted to let you know that for over10 years the NYC Teachers union, UFT has been providing support and the Albert Shanker Scholarship has paid for many many public school teachers to work toward National Board Certification.

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[Patti Bradstreet]

I agree with Dan about what teachers need.. But education is in need of real reform.. Not a tea party, not a clever sounding ideal used in a political debate to gain party favor, but reform that includes the exact pieces that are requested of teachers...TOP DOWN ACCOUNTABILITY....

[M.C. Brown]

I visit weekely with a math teacher in a failing school who increasinly felt helpless in a disfunctional system starting with the schools board of education. Last year she didn't know her teaching assignment until the week before classes were to begin. She was chastized by the Principle for collaborating with a fellow teacher and dept. head to reassign students into the classes they needed and wanted, atleast 30% of her students are absent the equivalent of one grading period in a semester and challenge their grade knowing that they have not completed the requirements of the course and denie cheating when confronted with the test results, parents who do not come for conferences or return phone calls but show up faster than security when their ward is involved in a fight. Regularly she is subject to student verbal abuse and teaching materials stollen from the classroom. Next year the budget includes 5 furlough days and an increase in health care payments. I could go on. It breaks my heart to see a person who thrives in working with youth and chose the inner city school to work with them and then become so defeated by the System. When will you talk about administrators that never leave their office or enforce the policies of for teacher and student deportment. It is the students who want to learn that lose. How about the fact that we loose young enthusiastic prospect from Teach to America because of the environments to which they are assigned. Environments where they most certainly will experience failure and receive little or no support or guidance on classroom management. I could go on but ...

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ou talk about administrators that never leave their office or enforce the policies of for teacher and student deportment. It is the students who want to learn that lose. How about the fact that we loose young enthusi

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