I don't go to the movies that much anymore (a houseful of
kids and pets will have that effect), but last weekend, I attended a screening
at the
Seattle International Film Festival that I cannot recommend
highly enough.
Waiting for "Superman" is a documentary that gives very clear testimony about our broken public
education system. The stories about a small but diverse group of families will
make your heart ache.
What was so refreshing about this film was that I sat with
an audience that had genuine emotional reactions to the crisis in public
education. I spend so much time immersed in data and education policy. I see
the evidence every day. The challenges, the indignities, the racial and
economic divides, the failures of our nation to keep up with international
competition. To me, it makes logical sense to fight for educational reform. I
have always believed that education reform is a civil rights issue.
There's a mountain of data in the presentations I linked to
above. Whether you wade through
Whitney Tilson's exhaustive and eye-opening research summary or browse
latest summary data from the Washington Office of the Superintendent (OSPI), it all points to the root issue:
Twin achievement gaps are crushing our
future. One gap is based on race. The other is based on income. How
those two gaps interact produces some distressing results for our students:
Click the image to view the full PDF.  |
Washington
State - and Seattle in particular - stands out as one of the most educated
places in the country. But that's only when we look at the adults who come here
from
in
the world.
We don't need
more data to tell us that this is a problem.
puts faces to the families and kids behind
the statistics, so here's what I'd like to ask you to do:
