Academy Award-winning documentarian Davis Guggenheim’s (“An Inconvenient Truth”) most recent film intends to do for public schools what his last one did for the environment — convince the nation that all’s gone to hell and we’d better act now.
But in “Waiting for Superman,” screened Wednesday night at Silver Spring’s SilverDocs movie festival, Guggenheim opts for practitioners over politicians to sell his cause. Instead of Al Gore with Powerpoint, we get schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee with actual power to close schools, fire teachers, and well, we know the routine.
Rhee — who shares the spotlight with a handful of educators nationwide, five families on a heartwrenching search for good public schools, and a lot of fancy graphics — appeared alongside Guggenheim and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten for a post-screening Q&A.
How the across-state-lines crowd adored the D.C. chancellor! And how she adored the moderator’s softballs: “Is this movie dangerous?” asked National Public Radio correspondent Claudio Sanchez.
“I hope so!” she responded. “People always ask me why I do this … This film answers that question.”
Weingarten spoke from the defensive, trying to convince viewers that unions, too, have been and can be a part of reform.
“It’s almost as if I always have to answer the question, ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’”
Guggenheim said he will be happy if his movie simply “starts a conversation” that could turn around the vile state of public education. And if that conversation goes anything like it’s gone in D.C. for the past three years, it could make saving the environment look like two-plus-two.
