Waiting For Superman (2010)

Documentary on the state of America's public schools from director Davis Guggenheim. The public school system, as you may have guessed, is a monstrous bureaucracy where children are statistics, not people. The Teachers Union was an entity I'd always liked, because, at least in Chicago, they were always going on strike, and that meant an unexpected and welcomed vacation. In actuality, they are a Teamster-esque brick wall insisting on jobs for life and automatic raises in their contracts. How well would you do at your job if you couldn't be fired and kept getting raises? I'd probably sit there and read Entertainment Weekly while I forced students to darn my socks and balance my checkbook (in silence, of course). The sad thing is, if you are a smart kid, and also happen to be poor, you're really fucked. There are heartbreaking scenes of parents desperately trying to get their kids out of the system and entering lotteries to gain attendance to private or charter schools. All this affirms what many of you have no doubt noticed just by looking around: people are getting more and more ignorant.