If we really want to have an honest conversation about the problems facing U.S. public education, then we also need to address the issue of funding in a more responsible way.
We learn from the film that average spending per pupil has more than doubled since 1971, from $4,300 (in inflation-adjusted dollars) to $9,000. Doubling the amount of money we’re spending on education might be worth it, Guggenheim says in his voice-over narration, “if we were producing better results—but we’re not.” He goes on to show how average scores on reading and math achievement tests haven’t really increased during this time.
What’s missing from this indictment is any historical perspective for understanding why. As it turns out, there’s a pretty reasonable explanation—and much of it has to do with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
In 1971, there was no law requiring schools to teach students with special needs. Before IDEA’s predecessor statute, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, was enacted in 1975, U.S. public schools were educating only about 1 in 5 children with disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Education. But that changed with the new legislation, and in 2006 more than 6 million children were receiving special-education services under IDEA.
What’s more, despite promises by the federal government to cover up to two-fifths of the cost of providing these services, local school systems generally are left footing more than 80 percent of the bill themselves.
Compounding the challenges facing our schools has been an explosion in the number of students who are English-language learners during this same period. Between 1979 and 2008, the number of school-age children (ages 5-17) who spoke a language other than English at home increased from 3.8 to 10.9 million, or from 9 to 21 percent of the population in this age range, according to federal officials.
Think that could help explain why we’ve doubled our investment in education over the last 40 years, with apparently little to show for it?
(Actually, if you consider that schools today are teaching many more students with special needs and who speak English as a second language, the fact that average test scores haven’t declined over this period probably should be a cause for celebration, not rebuke.)
Let’s also be honest about how much it costs to attain success. At least two of the charter school projects featured in Superman, Locke High School in Los Angeles and the Harlem Children’s Zone, get much of their funding from private or corporate contributions—another detail the film conveniently omits.
The Harlem Children’s Zone serves thousands of families in a 100-block area of New York City—but it does so with an $84 million budget. At Locke, two years after a charter group assumed control of the school, gang violence is down, fewer students are dropping out, and test scores are on the rise—but it’s taking an estimated $15 million over four years to achieve this turnaround, according to the New York Times.
Give credit to Guggenheim for shining a national spotlight on the need to improve U.S. public education. But it’s time we had a deeper, more meaningful, and far more introspective conversation about this topic—one that moves well beyond the bland banalities found in Waiting for ‘Superman.’
Do we want to continue trying to prepare every child for college or the workplace, regardless of that child’s needs or circumstances? If so, then how can we achieve this goal … while simultaneously raising our standards and regaining our status as a world leader in student achievement?
These two complementary challenges are not outside our reach—but it will take a much bigger investment in public education than we’ve made to date, as well as an approach that eschews flash over substance.
At eSchool News Online, we’ve created a platform for holding this important conversation: www.eschoolnews.com/reform. This brand-new section of our web site contains the latest news, research, and opinions to help school and community leaders explore real, effective strategies for moving education forward in the 21st century.
The challenges facing public education today require responsible, thoughtful, multifaceted solutions that involve all stakeholders working in concert—not shallow responses or agenda-driven reformers with superhero aspirations. We don’t need a Superman; what we need instead is a collective commitment to doing the hard work necessary to bolster public education as the foundation of a strong democracy. Anything less would be a disservice to our nation and our children.
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