http://www.mabearnews.com/top-stories/2010/12/03/superman-leaves-school-waiting-for-apology/Written by Regina Mullen
Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting for Superman” expresses a genuine concern for the quality of public education. Following five kids as they struggle through academic competition, Guggenheim’s film poses a powerful message: our public schools are failing, and charter schools can help. However, as a student of one of the districts the film criticizes, I found many of Guggenheim’s criticisms to be exaggerated, his comparisons of different schools to be false, and some of his facts entirely unfounded.
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The movie targets Woodside High School, in Woodside, CA, tracking students. “Tracking” is essentially the practice of organizing students into groups depending on their academic abilities; schools like Woodside typically have classes ranging from below basic, basic, college prep, and AP/honors. Each level is considered a different track.
The criticism on tracking is introduced through 8th grader Emily Jones, one of the five students featured in the film. When shown on screen, Emily comes across as both bright and hardworking, eager to learn and willing to put in the effort required to do well in her classes. Still, the movie explains how she was initially worried about attending Woodside High School as a 9th grader, fearing that her mediocre test scores would permanently strand her on a lower track. And, as the movie implies, this would have irrevocably condemned her to mediocre teachers, mediocre classes, a mediocre education, and an ultimately mediocre future. A school founded in the 1950’s, Woodside is chastised for its perpetuation of an allegedly antiquated tracking system. While those on the revered honors track go on to graduation and college, the lower track kids receive only neglect from the system – or so the movie says.
I believe this to be one of the most fundamental fallacies in Guggenheim’s Woodside criticism. Woodside is a part of the Sequoia Union High School District – a district which also includes my high school, Menlo-Atherton (M-A). As an M-A student for four years, I have ample firsthand experience with the tracking system. In my non-honors classes at M-A, I am appropriately challenged by the material, and still feel competitive as I apply to colleges such as Claremont-McKenna, the University of Chicago, and several UCs this fall. As a student engulfed in the apparently giant and unforgiving demon that is tracking, I still manage to effectively take a variety of honors and non-honors classes.
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Ultimately, I’ve found the tracking system to be beneficial, and certainly nothing for the likes of Emily Jones to fret about. Contrary to Guggenheim’s depiction, tracking in actuality is hardly a rigid system. While there are those who do firmly adhere to one track, most students at my school take a variety of classes, some of them lower track, some of them higher. And, in no way is it difficult to switch to a higher track. If you have proven yourself able to keep up with the material, then you can change tracks with ease. According to Woodside’s Head Counselor, Francisco Negri, Woodside is no different.
“We call them tracks,” says Negri, “But that’s not necessarily correct because you can literally jump from one to the other in subject area per semester or per year.”
Ms. Mullen is a Menlo-Atherton High School student writing for her school newspaper, M-A Bear News. Nice to see such a great young advocate for public education! More at the link, including a discussion with an M-A student who briefly attended the charter school portrayed in Waiting for Superman and returned to public school of his own volition because he did not feel challenged at Summit Academy.
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