Movie "Waiting for Superman" reveals "Inconvenient Truth"

Anyone wondering why a public education system conceived a hundred years ago can't adapt to the realities of the digital age should read the Sept. 20 issue of Time Magazine. The new film is by Davis Guggenheim, the director of "An Inconvenient Truth" and serves as the lead in to a 16 page report on public education. TIME describes a number of changes beginning to take hold, which it sees as a hopeful sign that reform is on the way.

Well, maybe. It's a long article but a story about teacher evaluations is indicative of the obstacles. A few weeks ago the Los Angele Times revealed that they had used improvement in test scores from students of 6000 district teachers to rate their effectiveness. Using "value added" statistical models they were able to reliably identify the worst and best teachers in their study. The results were consistent over seven years of data.

Predictably the teachers union called for a boycott of the paper but backed down. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan asked why it took a newspaper to do what the school district should have done years ago? A few days later the LA school board endorsed using the data as part of future teacher evaluations and is now negotiating with the union to make it happen.

Unfortunately, the shame of failure is not going to motivate much of the education establishment to change. Like FWCS, most of them will need the threat of extinction staring them in the face. With a lack of public outrage, the push has to come from politicians with more courage than we're used to seeing.