From the movie, Waiting for Superman, it doesn’t mean they are waiting for Superman as we watch on television, but just like Geoffrey Canada said, they are waiting for someone with enough power to save them. This movie basically shows how bad is the public school in United State and even though the tuition fee is getting higher, there’s no change of academic performance from 1971 to 2008. From those statements, I can make an assumption that not only parent, but school and teacher also play role in how children will turn out. It doesn’t mean they will make a decision and they can force the children, but parent, school and teacher help children to learn more and show them the way to be a successful person.
Freakonomics book said that two of eight ECLS factors that are correlated with school test scores are the child has highly educated parents and the child’s parents have high socioeconomic status. I agree that those are correlated, because as we can see from the movie, Daisy is a good student and she is smart enough, even her teacher admits it. But her parent dropped out from school, and only her mom who has a job. It means that those two factors are correlated, it can going together but it doesn’t mean they effect each other. Her parent decision to make her go in to a charter school is a good idea because they hire teachers, which are union-free and really qualified.
As an international student I saw a lot of difference between public school in United State and in my country. American children only allow go to public school in their district, while in Indonesian student can go to any public school even their house is 50 km away from school. If I were an American who have a child that ready to go to school, I’ll let my child go in to charter school, which have a better quality from public school. It doesn’t mean charter school can guarantee the children will be successful person. Public schools also produced many famous people, but the public schools nowadays are not as good as public schools 50 years ago. There is one thing that I disagree from charter school, which is the way they accept students by the lottery, because I think it’s unfair for any other children. There is no lottery for school in my country, so it’s a little weird for me that there are some school in United State that accept students by lottery.
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