Waiting for Superman hits theaters in several major cities this week
before its wide release next month. Moviegoers everywhere will be transfixed by
the emotional journeys of five families seeking a great education for their
vulnerable kids. I saw the film twice this summer— opportunities I received
because I teach at the SEED Public Charter School, one of the schools
celebrated in the film.

The five students followed
by Waiting for Superman all hope to get into charter schools, which admit by lottery. Not every
kid gets what he or she wants; it’s heartbreaking.

When the lights come up, I
think a lot of people will be flooded with feeling, but not sure how to take
action. The end credits encourage viewers to sign up for a text message feed.
The film also strongly insinuates that the public education system is utterly
broken and the solutions are found in bolting the system to privately-run,
publicly funded, non-unionized charter schools.

Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim, holds up my school, SEED, as an exemplar of
opportunity and success for educating at-risk youth, but really only portrays
it through the admissions process. Teachers and classrooms aren’t spotlighted.

SEED, a tuition-free
college-prep, five-day-a-week boarding school, located in Southeast D.C., is an
outstanding example of what charter schools are meant for; it’s an innovative
alternative to a traditional public school and a place for responsibly
experimenting with new models of wrap-around services. It currently serves
around 325 students in Washington, D.C. and there’s a new SEED School in
Baltimore that is several years away from growing to its full scale.

1. Teachers are accountable without feeling
   terrorized.

My
principal, assistant principal, and instructional coach observe my class, both
formally and informally, multiple times throughout the year. They read my
lesson plans every week. They monitor trends on my interim assessment data.
They talk to my students and my students’ families. They are engaging, highly
competent people with high expectations and backgrounds in the classroom. No
SEED teacher ever feels that there is one test or one data point that could
potentially destroy our careers.

2. Teachers feel ownership over our teaching.

If
I can justify what the standards-based educational value of what I’m planning,
my principal trusts me to do it. No scripted lesson plans. Order class sets of
contemporary novels for literature units? Done. Help me set up partnerships
with external organizations? Done with enthusiasm. (Through the PEN/Faulkner
Writers in Schools program, visiting authors come to my classes. Through the
Shakespeare Theatre Company, my students study and perform a Shakespeare play
under the tutelage of pros.) The opportunity to conceive and then actually follow
through on bringing exciting ideas to life energizes me throughout the long
haul of the school year.

3. The school helps us to become better teachers
   each year.

Last
year, SEED— in partnership with the Center for Teaching Quality— offered the
Take One! program for free to any
interested teacher. Take One!
is a warm-up for applying for National Board Certification, a truly rigorous
and craft-elevating endeavor. I’m currently working towards full certification
(which costs $2,500) and the school is happily paying for it. They view it as
an investment.

Two
summers ago I attended a weeklong professional development workshop for new AP
Literature teachers at Goucher College. It helped my practice tremendously—my
students’ AP exam scores increased 36% the year after I took the workshop. It
also cost about $1,100 dollars, which the school covered. Most SEED teachers
have similar stories about transformational professional development, almost
always subsidized by SEED.

My
supervisors, colleagues and I are on the same team, and we need each other to
succeed.

There’s a lot for many in
the public system to learn from how SEED operates— but that doesn’t mean that
SEED or other charters ought to supplant the entire system serving 50 million
students.

Waiting
for Superman says that SEED has answers. I’ve listed here several
on-the-ground good ones that policy makers and public school administrators
ought to heed.