You say critically acclaimed, I say propaganda designed to destroy our public schools and to line the pockets of corporate fat cats.

In a recent article about Micelle Rhee, controversial former D.C. schools chancellor, addressing the Florida Legislature, Brandon Larrabee sited her presence in the movie, Waiting for Superman. I say movie not documentary because many of its dramatic scenes were staged. Mr. Larrabee referred to the movie as being critically acclaimed, I say the movie was blatant propaganda made by a public school hating film maker, financed by billionaires interested in increasing their share in the education market through misinformation, teacher deamonizing, charter schools and an increased reliance on standardized testing. In case you blinked, you should know that education has become a multi-billion dollar business.

You know what really gets me? It’s the fact that many of those that embraced Waiting for Superman as the gospel are the same people that will dismiss a Michael Moore movie as Hollywood crap. I share many of Michael Moore’s views but I know when I watch his films to do so with both eyes open and to take them with a grain of salt.

Even if all of what was portrayed in Waiting for Superman was true regardless of the fact much has been debunked, (sadly however that didn’t get nearly the press the film did) it would still only show a miniscule fraction of what is going on in our schools. It would be like looking at three doctors you knew were bad and then condemning the whole medical field nationwide because of their actions.

Friends we do have serious problems in our education system but listening to slanted propaganda, like Waiting for Superman is, and to which Mr. Larrabee contributed to by his choice of words, is not the way to fix them.

Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher