Published: 1 years 213 days ago
Sacramento News & Review: If you haven’t yet seen the movie Waiting for “Superman,” you probably have a sense of its main message: Schools are failing American kids, largely because teachers unions have too much power and have blocked needed reform. Even people who haven’t seen the film have an opinion about it.
Like the dozen or so parents and teachers who protested the film’s opening in Sacramento on October 4—marching with signs saying things like, “Stop blaming teachers,” or the ever-popular “Where’s my high school?” or “Real reform = smaller class size.”
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has been evangelizing about the film for weeks—holding two special screenings of the film in Sacramento. He has his own long history of fighting the unions here in Sacramento over his own St. Hope charter school, which took over Sacramento High School in 2003.
So does his fiancée, one of Superman’s main protagonists, former Washington, D.C., Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. She made national news last week when she resigned that post after her boss, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty lost re-election last month. Rhee acknowledged the defeat was at least partially a referendum on her attempts to reform D.C. schools.
On October 5, a theater full of Johnson’s guests—including elected officials and business leaders—were treated to the film and a panel discussion including the mayor, Rhee, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Don Shalvey, described by the mayor as the “godfather of the charter school movement.”
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1861651
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