The Geoffrey Canada Problem- Too Many Students, Too Few Schools (Justin Westdyke)

In the movie Waiting for Superman and in discussion on Paul Tough’s “The Harlem Project,” Geoffrey Canada’s beliefs about some of the prevailing issues with our public school system are brought to the surface. I believe some of the concerns that Canada raises are actually ones that seem so basic and bare-bones that they might often be overlooked. Specifically, one thing Canada seems to emphasize in particular with his expanding Harlem Children Zone project is the notion that what it takes to create a successful school has been figured out and mastered (by people like himself). Rather, what is more necessary is now the expansion and increase in the number of public schools available to students in struggling areas who need the help that promising schools like the ones Canada controls can offer.

In some ways, it seems that the huge issue on how we are to go about fixing our schools is largely irrelevant at this point. The answer can be simplified to hiring educators who are more passionate about their students and “children” than they are their paychecks. If this can be said about the staff within a school system, it seems unlikely that the students that pass through it will be allowed to fail. I believe Canada’s approach to his schools starts with an attitude that many of the reformers we’ve read about in Brill’s book also believe; the idea that any student can and should and will achieve, no matter what. Unfortunately, I would have to side with Canada in saying that there are simply not enough schools or spaces available for students in public charter schools to accommodate all of our country’s students.

One point I found particularly interesting during one of our class discussions is the fact that if our country did not have the amount of private schools that it does, and the amount of students attending these schools was not as high as it is, our country’s public education system would completely crumble out of not having enough room to accommodate for all of the extra students.

One reason I find this particularly interesting is because, in its most basic sense, our country’s public education system is intended to be a system with which all of the children in our country have access and to which are “guaranteed” “equal” access. A brief look at the numbers, however, demonstrates just how completely far off from upholding that ideal we really are. This of course, then takes the discussion slightly further away from fixing the schools we currently have and directs it more along the lines of Canada’s discussion; simply accommodating for the students that we already have.

Something else I think Canada has done extremely well, is tied in with this issue. Canada is tackling the issue of both accommodation and better, more efficient schooling simultaneously. Rather than dumping time, money, and research into reform failing schools that already exist, Canada is creating his own school systems according to guidelines and regulations that he and many other reformers have found to be tirelessly effective.

After watching Waiting for Superman and seeing how different charter school’s lotteries are run, I realize just how truly bittersweet of a process it is. Families who “win” are exuberant, and feel blessed, even if the charter school their child is entering has just started and has not demonstrated any sort of tangible evidence in terms of its efficacy; whereas families who are left out of the draft feel, as Canada puts it, “…Well, there go my child’s chances” (Tough, 14). Watching this process unfold was a lot more painful to watch than I had anticipated when I imagined what the charter school lotteries might have looked like when I read about them in Brill’s novel, and it really opened my eyes up to why Canada became so passionate about helping out all of “his kids.”

References

Guggenheim, D., (2011). Waiting for “Superman”. Hollywood, Calif: Paramount Home Entertainment.

Tough, P. (2004). The Harlem Project. The New York Times, NY.