Status Anxiety: I can’t wait for Superman

You have to admire the marketing savvy of Paramount Pictures UK. It has picked the perfect moment to release Waiting for Superman, a 111-minute documentary about the crisis in American education. It comes out this Friday, following hot on the heels of the government’s White Paper on education and Ofsted’s report on Labour’s education record.

The conclusion of both the White Paper and Ofsted is that nothing is more important to educational attainment than good teachers and that is also the theme of Waiting for Superman. It follows the fate of half a dozen children, all of whom have applied for places at charter schools. We’re introduced to them at the beginning of the film and then taken on a whirlwind tour of the difficulties besetting American public schools. The main problem is that bad teachers are impossible to sack. In one of the most powerful scenes in the film, we’re shown footage of the ‘rubber room’, an office in New York where teachers are sent if they’re literally unemployable. Some of them are awaiting the outcome of tribunals which, because of clauses in their contracts, can take decades to be resolved. In the ‘rubber room’ they spend the day sleeping and playing cards.

The reason the charter schools featured in the film are better than the public schools is because they have the flexibility to reward good teachers and sack bad ones. They’re not just a bit better, either. They’re miles better. Which is why they’re massively over-subscribed. The odds of the six children getting in are not high.

The reason bad teachers can’t be sacked in the public school system is because of America’s all-powerful teachers unions. One of the film’s heroes is Michelle Rhee, who until last month was the chancellor of the District of Columbia’s public schools.