Still waiting for Supaerman-Tribune editorial

The families gather in the school auditorium or the gym. They're nervous. They're hopeful. They share a single goal: Getting their child out of a bad neighborhood school and into a top-notch charter school.

It's charter school lottery time. In cities around the country, much the same scene unfolds. There are more kids than places for them in the local charter school. Some will win a seat. Many more will not.

The parents know their children's future is on the line.

School officials draw numbered pingpong balls or slips of paper and call out the winning numbers for a coveted slot in the fall class. Each announcement brings a jubilant shriek from the winner. For everyone else, the odds get a little steeper.
That's what you see in the final wrenching scenes of "Waiting for Superman." We don't usually review movies here, but you should see this one. You won't forget the crestfallen faces of the kids whose number isn't called. Bring some Kleenex.

Think about this: There are some 420,000 children on waiting lists to get into charter schools across the nation, including about 15,000 children in Illinois. These are kids whose parents want a better education for them. These kids and parents are being told to wait.

They don't have time to wait.

If you take nothing else from "Waiting for Superman," you'll understand the urgency of families who desperately want a better school, but are trapped in the public education monopoly.

Charter schools aren't a magic bullet. Not every charter does better than the traditional public schools. But many do. In Chicago, 25 of 27 charter high schools outperform their neighborhood counterparts on state tests, according to 2009 Chicago Public Schools figures. Every one of the charters graduates students at a higher rate than the neighborhood schools. Every one has a stronger attendance rate.

"Waiting for Superman" has drawn a lot of blowback. Critics say the film unfairly casts teachers unions as the villains and that many charters don't perform as well as public schools. Director Davis Guggenheim has said of his film: "It's not 'pro' anything or 'anti' anything. It's really: Why can't we have enough great schools?"

Great question. Why doesn't Illinois have a charter school for every kid who wants to go to one?

One reason: There's still a cap on how many charter schools can operate in Illinois. Last year, Illinois lawmakers doubled the cap to 120 schools as part of the state's Race to the Top bid. They should have abolished the cap.

Too many school boards and teachers unions still see charter schools as unwelcome competition. They operate outside the regular school rules. They receive tax revenues. Their teachers often don't belong to a union. So the unions and the school boards continue to resist them. Even as Illinois raised the cap on charters, it put new restrictions on their independent operation.

Illinois hasn't attracted as many high-quality charter operators as it should. The state ties funding for charters to a school district's tuition rate, which is generally lower than what a school actually spends per student. Bottom line: many charters may receive as little as 75 percent of the per-pupil tax money that goes to regular public schools. Private funding helps make up some of the difference. But lawmakers need to change the rules so charters get the same public dollars as regular schools.

The state needs another way for charters to get approved. An independent state commission or a local community institution, such as a college, should get approval authority so reluctant local school boards can't stall them. Let good charter schools flourish.

And beyond charters, it needs to give children more choices in education. The legislature should approve legislation that would give tuition vouchers to 30,000 students in Chicago's worst-performing schools. That bill passed the Senate but was stuffed by the House earlier this year.

Go see "Waiting for Superman." You'll meet Daisy, a Los Angeles fifth grader who wants to be a veterinarian. You'll meet Anthony, a Washington, D.C., fifth grader who lost his father to drug addiction and wants to do better for his own kids someday. Bianca, a Harlem kindergartner raised by a single mother struggling to afford a decent education for her daughter.

Let's give parents and students more choices. No child should have to wait to be rescued from a poor education.


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