The 21st Century Charter Schools Initiative

fact, those are the very areas where he has success." Scott Bowles of USA Today lauded the film
for its focus on the students: "it's hard to deny the power of Guggenheim's lingering shots on
these children." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A−, calling it
"powerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing." The Hollywood Reporter focused
on Geoffrey Canada's performance as "both the most inspiring and a consistently entertaining
speaker," while also noting it "isn't exhaustive in its critique." Variety characterized the film's
production quality as "deserving every superlative" and felt that "the film is never less than
buoyant, thanks largely to the dedicated and effective teachers on whom Guggenheim
focuses." Geraldo Rivera praised the film for promoting discussion of educational issues.
Deborah Kenny, CEO and founder of the Harlem Village Academy, made positive reference to
the film in a The Wall Street Journal op-ed piece about education reform.
The film has also garnered praise from a number of conservative critics. Joe Morgenstern,
writing for The Wall Street Journal, gave the movie a positive review saying, "when the future of
public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity," the film "makes an invaluable
addition to the debate." The Wall Street Journal 's William McGurn also praised the film in an
op-ed piece, calling it a "stunning liberal exposé of a system that consigns American children
who most need a decent education to our most destructive public schools." Kyle Smith, for the
New York Post, gave the movie 4.5 stars, calling it an "invaluable learning experience." Forbes '
Melik Kaylan similarly liked the film, writing, "I urge you all to drop everything and go see the
documentary Waiting For "Superman" at the earliest opportunity."
The film also received negative criticism. Andrew O'Hehir of Salon wrote a negative review of
the movie, saying that while there's "a great deal that's appealing," there's also "as much in this
movie that is downright baffling." Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice was critical of the film
for not including enough details of outlying socioeconomic issues, saying, "macroeconomic
responses to Guggenheim's query... go unaddressed in Waiting for "Superman," which points
out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them."
Anderson also opined that the animation clips were overused. In New York City, a group of local
teachers protested one of the documentary's showings, calling the film "complete nonsense",
saying that "there is no teacher voice in the film."
Critics
Author and academic Rick Ayers lambasted the accuracy of the film, describing it as "a slick
marketing piece full of half-truths and distortions." In Ayers' view, the "corporate powerhouses
and the ideological opponents of all things public" have employed the film to "break the
teacher's unions and to privatize education," while driving teachers' wages even lower and
running "schools like little corporations." Ayers also critiqued the film's promotion of a greater
focus on "top-down instruction driven by test scores," positing that extensive research has
demonstrated that standardized testing "dumbs down the curriculum" and "reproduces
inequities," while marginalizing "English language learners and those who do not grow up
speaking a middle class vernacular." Lastly, Ayers contends that "schools are more segregated
today than before Brown v. Board of Education in 1954," and thus criticized the film for not
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