Future of American Education Project

How Waiting for Superman

(Almost) Changed the World
By Alexander Russo
June 2014
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1


The Future of American Education Working Paper Series is edited and overseen by Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy
studies at the American Enterprise Institute. The series, which is part of the Future of American Education Project, is a publishing
platform for original scholarship in all areas of education reform. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the
author and do not necessarily reflect those of the American Enterprise Institute. Working papers and other project materials can be
found at www.aei.org/policy/education/. Scholars interested in submitting to the working paper series should contact Daniel
Lautzenheiser for additional information, at daniel.lautzenheiser@aei.org or 202.862.5843.

Previous Publications in the Future of American Education Working Paper Series:

Left Out of No Child Left Behind
by Alexander Russo

The Successful Failure of ED in 08
by Alexander Russo

Facilities Financing: Monetizing Educations Untapped Resource
by Himanshu Kothari

Linking Costs and Postsecondary Degrees: Key Issues for Policymakers
by Nate Johnson

Opportunities for Efficiency and Innovation: A Primer on How to Cut College Costs
by Vance H. Fried

Something Has Got to Change: Rethinking Special Education
by Nate Levenson

Shifting Risk to Create Opportunity: A Role for Performance Guarantees in Education
by Bryan Hassel and Daniela Doyle

The Attrition Tradition in American Higher Education: Connecting Past and Present
by John R. Thelin

But the Pension Fund Was Just Sitting There: The Politics of Teacher Retirement Plans
by Frederick M. Hess and Juliet P. Squire

Diverse Providers in Action: Lessons Learned from School Restructuring in Hawaii
by Frederick M. Hess and Juliet P. Squire

Private Capital and Public Education: Toward Quality at Scale
by Tom Vander Ark, Revolution Learning

Professors on the Production Line, Students on Their Own
by Mark Bauerlein, Emory University

Success at Scale in Charter Schooling
by Steven F. Wilson, Ascend Learning, Inc.

Education Policy, Academic Research, and Public Opinion
by William G. Howell, University of Chicago

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Alexander Russo is a writer, blogger, and author who has been published and/or quoted in Slate,
The Washington Monthly, Washington Post, Huffington Post, New York Times, and USA Today. His
website, This Week in Education, is one of the nation's longest-running education blogs. His
2011 book, Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors (Jossey-Bass/Wiley), chronicled the attempt by a network
of unionized charter schools to rescue a broken Los Angeles high school. He was a 2009 Spencer
Education Journalism Fellow at Columbia University. Before he began writing, Russo served as an
education adviser to US senators and the chancellor of the New York City public schools, and
(briefly) as a high school English teacher and education researcher.



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How Waiting For Superman (Almost) Changed The World

In September 2013, documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim and his production partners at
Participant Media debuted TEACH, a two-hour documentary following four classroom teachers
during an eventful 2011-2012 school year.

This wasnt Guggenheims first foray into making movies about education. It was actually the wavy-
haired, chunky-glassed filmmakers third such effort and his second education-themed
documentary in just three years.

But the 2013 documentary that aired on broadcast television was certainly Guggenheims most
blandly uplifting education film, almost entirely optimistic in its depiction of schools and
classroom teachers. It omitted any real discussion of teacher preparation, the teachers unions role,
ineffective teachers, or charter schools. It took no position on educational reform or state and
federal policies.
1


The New York Times described it as a valentine to the teaching profession.
2


This was a far cry from Guggenheims previous effort, 2010s Waiting For Superman (Superman),
which described inadequate schools, indifferent teachers, under-educated students, and extremely
frustrated parents turning to charter schools as an escape from district offerings.

The result of that hard-hitting effort was a film that attracted massive media attention and heated
public debate. According to Participant, the films production company, Superman helped 2.8
million students through donations and attracted 10,000 participants to town hall meetings and
online screenings of the film.
3


For a moment in time, public education was truly top of mind in a way it had not been before,
said John Schreiber, Participants head of social action campaigns at the time.
4


It was a moment of remarkable synchronicity for education issues, noted the New York Times.
5


But the 2010 film was also much more controversial than Guggenheims other efforts, previous or
since. Those skeptical of charter schools and school reform strategies believed that it was a
grotesquely misleading and manipulative film that ineffectively blamed teachers and unions for
educations woes. Another set of critics, including many school reformers likely to be sympathetic
to the films underlying message, believed that Superman was a massive disappointment that
polarized viewers and didnt seem to have changed the way many Americans thought about
education, much less how they behaved.

Movies that sell charter schools as a salvation are peddling a simple-minded remedy that takes us
back to the worst charter puffery of a decade ago, is at odds with the evidence, and can blind
viewers to what it takes to launch and grow truly great charters, wrote the American Enterprise
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Institutes Frederick M. Hess. The movie wildly romanticizes charters, charter school teachers,
and the kids and families, making it harder to speak honestly or bluntly about charter schooling.
6


Which side was right in its criticism of the movie? Neither, really.

A careful re-examination of the making of the film and the social action campaign that
accompanied it as well as a review of two independent studies of the films impacts that have not
been widely discussed before now suggests that Superman was neither an overwhelming success
nor an abject failure and that its long-term impact is not yet fully understood.

Just as important as its potential impact, Superman is a vivid example of a somewhat different kind
of education advocacy at work an attempt to win the publics sympathy and support through film
and other forms of popular media that is increasingly being adopted by school reform advocates
across the ideological spectrum. (Case in point: Participants latest education effort Ivory Tower
is slated for release in June, suggesting the use of movies as advocacy shows no signs of abating.)
This is a markedly different strategy from earlier efforts by these same advocates and major
education foundations that tended to limit their investments to funding specific programs or
direct services to schools. As such, it is full of lessons for funders and nonprofit leaders who seem
bound and determined to pursue mass media films and social impact campaigns as part of their
advocacy efforts.

Part I: Making the Movie

Movies as Advocacy

There are certainly other, much more direct approaches to improving public education than
making a documentary. Most documentaries dont get much attention from the movie industry or
the general public. Theyre shown at festivals, screened at conferences, written about by a few
bloggers and movie reviewers, and are lucky to be featured at even a handful of art house theaters
around the country. Their makers do their best to generate interest via friends and family, relying
on low-cost strategies like Facebook and Twitter.

In box office terms, message movies documentary or otherwise have historically often
flopped, leading legendary Hollywood studio head Sam Goldwyn to once quip, If you've got a
message, send a telegram.
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But movies and other forms of mass media have long been thought to have the ability to change
viewers thinking, understanding, and even occasionally their actions. Get enough people to watch
a truly powerful movie or documentary, the thinking went, and you could change individual
behavior and attitudes, influence legislative action, or alter corporate behavior.

And the inherent appeal of classrooms, teachers, students, and schools has long attracted
filmmakers and viewers to education-themed films such as Goodbye, Mr. Chips; To Sir, With Love;
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Dead Poets Society; Stand and Deliver; Dangerous Minds; and Season 4 of the widely acclaimed HBO
hit The Wire.

Theres something that goes on between the learner and the learned thats a very powerful and
emotional thing, according to veteran Chicago filmmaker Gordon Quinn, whose projects
included 1994s Hoop Dreams, a standout documentary about two Chicago teenagers who hope to
become professional basketball players. When you can see learning unfolding sometimes over
time or in a sudden moment its incredibly emotional.

The Shifting Priorities of Funders

This belief seemed to resonate during the 2000s in particular with big-time education funders and
nonprofits who were turning away from primarily funding relatively small-scale programs and
direct services to schools and students towards broader efforts. These included policy, advocacy,
legislative politics, and increasingly movies.

The initial 1990s-2000s wave of education reform efforts had focused on creating new schools,
providing direct classroom services, and enhancing human capital. However, these foundation-
funded attempts hadnt made as much of a dent in the K-12 landscape as had been hoped. In
response, foundations and funders expanded their scope to include broader advocacy efforts.

This second wave of reform groups was dominated by advocacy organizations with names like the
PIE Network, 50CAN, Democrats For Education Reform, and Stand For Children. They didnt
train teachers or teach kids. They lobbied elected officials, recruited parents to clamor for better
schools, and gave candidates for office an alternative to union support.

Very few big social changes happen without some form of advocacy, observed political scientists
Steven Teles and Mark Schmitt in a 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review article. Good ideas
didnt catch on widely just because they worked.
8


Indeed. From 2000 to 2010, the Gates Foundations giving to school districts plummeted, while its
advocacy funding increased sevenfold.
9
In 2008, the Gates and Broad Foundations funded the
EDIN08 campaign, which was designed to make education a focal point of the 2008 presidential
election. That effort also included the use of a documentary Two Million Minutes a film about
the impact of longer school days in other countries.
10


Two years later, there would be two other reform-oriented documentaries (The Lottery, The Cartel)
in the works at the same time as the movie that would become Superman.

An Inconvenient Truth For Education

Perhaps the biggest indicator that a movie might work as an advocacy tool came not from the
realm of education but global warming. Guggenheims 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth
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(sometimes referred to by its initials, AIT) was perhaps the best example of the idea that movies
might be able to generate real-world changes in peoples beliefs, if not their actions.

An Inconvenient Truth raised Americans awareness of global warming from less than 30 percent to
87 percent, according to its makers.
11
It also grossed more than $6 million a staggering sum given
the limited release and viewership most documentaries receive. Five countries made the film part
of their education curricula. The movie won its narrator, Al Gore, an Academy Award and a
Nobel Peace Prize.

The idea for an education version of AIT came from Participant, a Los Angeles-based
filmanthropy company founded in 2004 by an eBay billionaire named Jeff Skoll. Participant
aimed to make documentaries and feature films that made money while promoting social change.
A 2013 Philanthropy Roundtable article would describe Participants efforts as star-laden, carefully
crafted, politically colored films.
12


And it seemed to make enormous sense for Participant to ask Guggenheim to try and create the
film. In 1999, having just been fired by Denzel Washington as director of Training Day,
Guggenheim made The First Year, a film about teachers going through their difficult first year in
the classroom.
13
Then came An Inconvenient Truth.

He is able to mine emotions in a really powerful way, noted Pat Aufderheide, University
Professor and Director of the Center for Social Media at American Universitys School of
Communications. He is somebody who has an ability to tap into peoples emotional states.

Guggenheims Reluctant Agreement

Initially, Guggenheim didnt want to do it. While a strong supporter of public education and of
unions, the filmmaker had himself attended private schools and recently decided against sending
his youngest child to the local neighborhood elementary school.

In the end, however, what the New York Times would later describe as a swirl of private guilt and
public obligation proved too much.
14
A month after being approached, Guggenheim called
Participant back to say hed changed his mind.

He knew that Participant would give him free rein to tell whatever story he thought was most
powerful. And he believed that there was room among thoughtful liberals for considering the role
of, and even criticizing, teachers unions.

The Education Octopus

To get themselves up to speed, Guggenheim and producing partner Lesley Chilcott hosted
informal lunches for various educational experts of all backgrounds and disciplines at their offices
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and peppered them with questions that helped the filmmakers find the thinkers and innovators at
the leading edge of education.

Guggenheim hired comedy writer Billy Kimball to help make sure that there were some lighter
moments as well as seriousness. You have to emphasize the crisis and the drama of these kids
situations, said Kimball. That said, thats only half of it. You also have to emphasize that change
can happen.
15


They didnt know exactly what they were going to do right from the start but that wasnt
unusual. Especially on documentaries, it takes some time to make the movie, said a Participant
insider who asked not to be named. You discover things in the course of making the movie that
you might not have been expecting.

However, Guggenheim and his team quickly became overwhelmed. This is the hardest movie
weve made, by a factor of 10, he would later say. The complexity of the issue...how do you make
things simple enough for a wider audience to grasp, and then how do you get people to care, and
to invest?
16


A seeming breakthrough moment was deciding to focus on annual school lotteries at which kids
and parents find out whether theyre going to get into the school of their dreams.

Guggenheim got the idea from a May 2008 column from the New York Times Tom Friedman:
Theres something wrong when so much of an American childs future is riding on the bounce of
a ping-pong ball, wrote Friedman.
17


From a filmmaking point of view, admissions lotteries were hard to resist. They combined high
stakes and sympathetic figures; they highlighted a broken or at least inadequate system; and they
provided dramatic, potentially life-changing moments. The stakes were vivid and real. The arbitrary
nature of the process was clear. The emotions would take care of themselves.

It's a great metaphor...there is kind of a lottery for all of us: you know, what zip code youre born
in, what district youre in, what teacher you have, said Guggenheim.

Indeed, the idea was so good that there was another documentary in the works focused on the
same thing. Called The Lottery, it would come out two months before Superman, but would attract
much less attention.

Once the lottery theme was locked in, Guggenheim and Chilcott started to feel like they
understood what was going on. You start to realize that we do know what the problems are,
Chilcott said in an interview. And there are people who know how to fix them.
18


This notion that there were widely agreed-upon solutions to educations woes would come
back to haunt the filmmakers, as would the films narrow focus on charter school lotteries
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Making Two Movies At Once

Working off an organizational device that had served him well in making An Inconvenient Truth,
Guggenheim settled on what he called a two-story system that flipped back and forth between
the families search for a better school and the structural problems that meant there werent
enough good ones out there.

One storyline was called The Folly of the Adults, and it focused on the broken school system.
Guggenheim concentrated his attention on then-Washington, DC, school chancellor Michelle
Rhee, and followed up with unsettling statistics about the inadequacies of the public schools and
the fearsome consequences of ongoing failure for the nations social and economic future.

Also included were a litany of public educations most notorious problems: ineffective teachers
who couldnt be fired, low-performing teachers who bounced from school to school but always
found a job somewhere, and schools where more students dropped out (or were pushed out) than
graduated or learned how to read.

The second storyline was called Other Peoples Children, and it focused on the fates of a
handful of families trying to get out of their neighborhood schools and into a better one.

The team eventually narrowed things down from nearly 20 families to just five kids: Francisco
Regalado, from Bronx, New York, whose teacher said he couldnt read but who wouldnt talk with
his mother when she requested a parent-teacher conference; Bianca Hill, who was already going to
a Catholic school and who wanted to go to the highly-regarded Harlem Success Academy; Daisy
Esparza, East Los Angeles, who wanted to go to KIPP LA Prep rather than her struggling
neighborhood middle school; Silicon Valleys Emily Jones, who wanted to go to untracked Summit
Prep; and Anthony Black from Washington, DC, whose grandmother wanted him to go to SEED
DC, a residency-based charter school.

No matter how abstract or obtuse it got, I knew I could always cut back to those kids and their
families, Guggenheim would say.

Shooting the Movie

Guggenheim wrote a treatment in the spring of 2008, which was used to greenlight the project.
Participant agreed to pay for the costs of producing and spreading the word about the film.

The filmmakers shot most intensely during the 2008-2009 school year. The lottery drawings were
held in the spring of 2009.

By and large, there was little trouble getting people to agree to participate. Microsoft founder Bill
Gates, Harlem Childrens Zone founder Geoff Canada, and several charter school networks all
agreed to participate though the filming experience would become bothersome for some of the
schools that participated.
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We thought it was going to be minimally disruptive, but these things end up being a lot more
work when camera crews move in, according to Success Academy Charter Schools network head
Eva Moskowitz. You get endless requests: Can I get this shot? Can I get that shot?

Rhee declined to participate initially, only to be persuaded to agree when then-boyfriend (now-
husband), Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, told her how much he admired Guggenheims The
First Year. He was like, You have to do this, said Rhee.

Longtime Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews was startled when Guggenheim and a half-dozen
others appeared in the papers small Alexandria, Virginia, conference room with more equipment
than I had ever seen in that little room. Said Mathews, I thought it would be a fun little
interview, him and a camera guy, the usual thing for me. [but] I knew I had underestimated what
this was.

Guggenheim and Chilcott then began editing down and combining the storylines in the fall of
2009. Along the way, Guggenheim decided he would narrate. Even though he wasnt flashy or
loud (like fellow documentary filmmaker Michael Moore), or especially expert in the topic (like Al
Gore and global warming in AIT), Guggenheim felt that the film needed a really strong, pointed
voice and a personal point of view from someone who had a stake in the outcome.

What neither the filmmakers nor Participant knew for sure was whether they could make a movie
that would be sufficiently attractive for a major movie distributor to put into thousands of theaters
rather than art houses or on TV.

Part II: Creating Zeitgeist

The social action campaign that would accompany the release of the film screenings, town
halls, books, and social media initiatives was being developed at about the same time as the
moviemaking process, though it would change along the way as the filmmakers adjusted their
focus and themes.

Budgets for these ancillary efforts could be as much as 30 percent of a films overall production
budget not as much as in commercial feature filmmaking but still pretty substantial. (Participant
declined to say how much the film cost to produce or how big its social impact budget was, but at a
minimum we know they received $2 million from the Gates Foundation for advocacy efforts.
19
) It
was Participants largest social action campaign ever, according to Participants John Schreiber.

Participants veteran social action team also found education a particularly complicated issue to
work on. It wasnt that education was more complicated than global warming in any objective
sense, but rather that its politics were more complicated.

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The conclusions of [An Inconvenient Truth] were less controversial [among Democrats] than the
issue of education, explained Schreiber.

Unlike global warming, education divided Democrats into warring factions. Some Democrats were
devoted to improving and supporting traditional public schools, with neighborhood attendance
zones and unionized teachers. Others were willing to consider (or even enthusiastic about) non-
district options like charters, pilots, and contract schools that often lacked unionized teachers. A
few like Rhee were comfortable with private school vouchers.

Broad Set of Partnerships & Diffuse Action Items

The social action campaign would end up being immense, according to Participant, thanks in large
part to outside funders, excitement among nonprofits about having such a prominent film being
made about education, and an extensive set of partnerships.

More than 300 outside partners worked on Superman over a two-year period. They included Stand
for Children, the United Way, Office Max, First Book, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Jones
New York.

Social action campaign activities eventually included town hall meetings in 15 cities, statehouse
screenings in another 15 state capitols, and local campaigns in 20 cities. The United Way was a
major partner and helped mount local campaigns in 20 cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, and
New York City.

Not unexpectedly, billionaire Bill Gates and his team became interested in the film. Having an
Oscar award-winning documentarian tell the story of these students and these schools was
something that we felt at the time was a worthwhile investment, said former Gates Foundation
policy and advocacy chief Greg Shaw.

The film was previewed at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2010. Gates himself would
appear at Sundance to help promote the film, and would also praise the film in his annual letters
in both 2010 and 2011.
20
Paramount announced its intention to distribute the film to theaters
nationwide the day after the Sundance premier.
21
It would spend a million dollars on the deal.

Enthusiasm and support from other education reform funders and groups grew as the year went
on. In May 2010, the film was screened at the NewSchools Venture Fund Summit and featured as
the topic of a panel on Influencing the Public Mindset.

People are going to see this film and they are going to fall in love with these kids and they are
going to want good things to happen to them very, very much, said Eric Alter from SEED
Charter Schools, who were featured in the film. No one is going to walk out of the theater who
does not CARE and I think that will motivate them to do something.
22


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The movie was also screened and discussed at the annual conference of education writers, the
Aspen Ideas Festival, and other venues during the summer 2010.
23


The Philip Anschutz-funded Walden Media, run by former Boston teacher Michael Flaherty, also
became a partner. The second I heard that pitch, we did everything we could to be a part of it,
Flaherty said.
24
Walden ultimately chipped in with both production funding and marketing
support.

The liberal-leaning Ford Foundation funded Active Voice to broaden interest in the film as much
as possible, to focus on needy communities and parent engagement, and make people aware of the
challenges facing public schools and the nonprofits there to help. Active Voice created a
discussion guide that was translated into Spanish and distributed through Participant and in the
DVD, as well as conducted direct work with nonprofit partners in California.
25


Liberal groups and teachers unions werent generally so eager to support the film, for reasons that
would soon become obvious.

The full-color movie poster featured a lone student sitting at an old-fashioned wooden desk,
surrounded by a black and white scene of urban destruction. Her hand raised, she had a ray of
light shining down on her from the clouds above.

The Premiere

Superman finally premiered in the US on September 24, 2010, in theaters in New York and Los
Angeles, with a rolling wider release that began on October 1, 2010. Seeing all the attention and
support the movie was attracting, Paramount had decided to give the film a full theatrical release,
rather than a limited run.

Oprah spotlighted the movie on September 20 in a show that featured Gates, Rhee, and
Guggenheim. A few days after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced his intention to
give $100 million to Newark schools, the movie was a prominent part of NBCs Meet The Press.

President Obama talked about the movie on the Today Show, calling the film heartbreaking
and powerful and noting the unfairness of a system in which some parents could find great
schools for their kids but many couldnt.
26


A couple of weeks later, Obama greeted the kids from the movie at the White House.
27
In
photographs released by the White House, the five children sat on the tan couch. A bowl of red
and yellow apples sat on the coffee table in front of them. Behind them stood adults, including
Guggenheim.

This has become the national topic, said US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan about the
response to the film.
28


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Massive media coverage

Compared to most other serious documentaries, the movie was a massive effort and a
remarkable success. The movie was on the cover of TIME, Newsweek, Parade, and was featured in
New York magazine. ABC and NBC did special segments. The nearly immediate success of the
coffee table book that accompanied the movie quickly rising onto the New York Times best seller
list was a big accomplishment for Participant.
29


Guggenheim appeared on the Colbert Report, wearing jeans and a black crew-neck shirt under a
jacket, and explained in his calm, almost deadpan manner that we should all care about other
peoples kids. He refrained from blaming the teachers union or glorifying charter schools.

For a period of time it was dominating the news cycle, said Megan Colligan, Paramounts
president of domestic marketing.
30


The only disappointment expressed by the Participant media team was that the New York Times
reviewed the film and covered some of the controversy surrounding it but didnt give the movie
the kind of front-page or feature magazine coverage as had been hoped for.
31
(A few months later,
the Superman team would be even more disappointed when the movie was snubbed for an Oscar
nomination.)

Over all, the film was screened at 30 film festivals, won more than 25 awards and nominations,
and was seen by 1.3 million theatergoers, according to Participant. Walden led the faith-based arm
of the campaign and claimed to have eventually reached over a million congregants.

Participant is very good at having a feel for the zeitgeist, where theyre able to have a film come
out at this moment where an issue is erupting, said a Participant insider involved with the social
impact campaign, which included multiple times being featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Even in my dream campaign for the movie I never even would have written down Oprah
twice.

They werent just trying to gauge or time the current zeitgeist. They were trying to create it. And
for a moment it seemed like theyd succeeded.

Part III: The Pushback

Unwise (Unintended?) Attack On Weingarten & Teachers Unions

For a film like Superman, buzz was good. Controversy? Not as much. Too much controversy would
distract attention from the underlying issues specifically the lack of enough good schools for
parents to send their kids to that Guggenheim and Participant hoped would be the focus.

But thats what began happening well before the movie actually made it into theaters.
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First and foremost, the film was perceived as an unfair (or, perhaps, merely unwise) attack on
teachers unions in general and president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Randi
Weingarten in particular.

Concerns about the anti-teacher feel of the film had circled for months among those within the
reform community who had screened the film. [Gates Foundation education head] Vicki Phillips
expressed deep concerns about the film, for the reasons everyone else expressed, said an insider
who did not want to be named. They made Randi Weingarten a villain and there are some real
risks to doing that, both actual and strategic.
32


Weingarten was depicted as something of a foaming satanic beast, according to Variety.
33
She was
somewhat demonized by the film, according to a New York Times review.
34


Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews described it as one of the most anti-union
documentaries I had ever seen.

I was shocked by the way it demonizes teachers, Weingarten said about viewing it for the first
time in April, when Guggenheim came to New York to screen it for her.
35
She asked if they were
open to making changes to the film, but it was already locked.

Some of the people working on the movie said that they were taken by surprise at how the movie
was received. Somehow it became a good guy-bad guy conversation, said a Participant insider.
All of a sudden people are saying, Youre campaigning for an anti-teacher movie. What?

I don't think I anticipated anyone trying to say the film was anything but pro-teachers and pro-
kids, said producer Chilcott.

However, Guggenheim himself said he wasnt surprised that Weingarten objected when she saw
the final version of the movie. I knew that this was going be politically uncomfortable, he said
about his portrayal of Weingarten. I wasnt surprised at Randis reaction at all.

Guggenheim and his team felt deeply that union obstructionism was a part of the problem that
needed to be told. I was trying to tell the story, and from friends of mine who were teachers and
who ran schools, and were superintendents, saying consistently the same thing since I made my
first film.

What he wasnt fully prepared for, however, was that direct address of union job protections still
wasnt a comfortable topic for public discussion among Democrats in 2010. People on the left
believed that the idea of unions was such a central tenet of liberalism that you cant even begin to
criticize them, he said.


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Counter-Mobilization

Whether the film was really anti-teacher or whether opponents merely labeled it as such was
debatable. But the result was that to some extent the film became less about the students and more
about teachers unions.

Even before its first screening, Waiting for Superman has already created a rift between critics, who
pan its anti-union and pro-charter-school bent, and supporters, who hail the film for telling the
truth about sinking public schools, wrote the New York Post.
36


On September 9, the AFT issued a pre-emptive response, describing the film as inaccurate and
misleading for its focus on charter schools and its criticism of teachers unions: It is shameful to
suggest, as the film does, that the deplorable behavior of one or two teachers (including an
example more than two decades old) is representative of all public school teachers.
37


Weingarten couldnt get the film changed but she welcomed the chance to participate in panels
about the film leading up to its release. Wherever the film was screened and Guggenheim
appeared, it seemed Weingarten was also there onstage further heightening the focus on charters
and teachers unions.

Participant and Guggenheim comforted themselves that the debate surrounding the film might be
nudging Weingarten towards statements and concessions that she might not otherwise have made.
But it was just as possible that Weingartens presence helped reframe the movie in ways that didnt
suit its intentions.

The union worked so aggressively to tear the movie apart, said one insider who didnt want to be
named. Everyone bought into Weingartens framing that it was pro-charter and nothing more,
undermining the larger message.

Errors & Omissions

There were also a handful of nagging errors and omissions in the film, according to both critics
and supporters of reform. Some were factual: The film didnt let viewers know that the teachers
union contract had been signed in DC a few months before the film was released, or that one of the
schools labeled a failure had gotten better over the past two years, or that New York City had
finally closed its rubber rooms (sort of).
38


Superman makes its case in highly dramatic terms, sometimes underplaying important nuances,
noted the Times.
39


There were a handful of transparency issues, too. In November 2010, the New York Times reported
that some of the scenes depicted in the movie had been altered for moviemaking purposes, or shot
out of sequence to enhance the dramatic effect. Specifically, a tour of Harlem Success took place
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after the lottery had occurred and was staged as an individual tour rather than a group information
session.
40


Waiting for Superman was a fairy tale, based on half-truths, exaggerations, and
misrepresentations, wrote school reform gadfly Diane Ravitch.
41


Other omissions seemed like ideological choices. Guggenheims focus was on systemic obstacles to
effective schools and good teaching. But he didnt make much of systemic obstacles outside of
schools such as income inequality, racism, poverty, or cultural issues.

The film also failed to illustrate the conflicts or struggles the reform effort was experiencing none
of the disagreements among school reformers over the role of charter schools, teacher evaluations,
or private school choice. There was no internal tension depicted. There was no dirty laundry.

Exclusion of Successful District Schools

Reviewers such as the New Yorkers David Denby noted that the film leaves the impression that
charter schools are the only salvation for these children (and, by implication, for all American
children).
42


The filmmakers claimed that they made no unsubstantiated claims about charters, and indeed
noted at one point in the movie that only some charters are particularly effective not all of them.
But the family dramas that were the emotional center of the film all focused on failing district
schools and superior charter alternatives with not enough spaces to meet the demand.

I dont know that Davis Guggenheim anticipated that the film would be adopted by the reform
movement in the remarkably enthusiastic way it was, said John Schreiber. And yet there was little
debate that the film was positive about charters.

Daviss thesis was that charters are making a positive difference in the lives of children, which
they are!

One obvious way to universalize parents concerns would have been to include selective, magnet,
or other district schools that dont have enough seats to meet demand. Magnet school enrollments
have been rising steadily in recent years up 35 percent in Miami-Dade County alone.
43
Almost 90
percent of magnets operate lotteries, according to an informal, unpublished survey conducted by
the Magnet Schools of America in 2013.
44


Guggenheim said that hed originally intended to include efforts to get into district magnet schools
particularly Los Angeles popular LACES school. However, his efforts to gain access were foiled,
and the filmmakers claimed that only a live lottery drawing would have sufficient emotional
impact on viewers.
45
After agonized discussions among themselves and with Participant, the
filmmakers decided to go forward without the magnet school storyline.
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How hard did he try? asked one dubious insider.

Part IV: Success or Failure?

But was Superman a success or not? How to measure something as broad and indirect as a feature
documentary? Evaluating Supermans long-term impact and, by extension, the possibility for
documentaries and feature films to enact real-world social change is another issue entirely.

Creating an emotional reaction in viewers was part of the goal, and attracting media attention as
well. But they werent the end goal. The only thing that mattered was having a measurable impact.
We make documentaries because we want them to have consequences, said Chicago filmmaker
Quinn.

In terms of real-world goals, Supermans were pretty lofty to build awareness of the issues, engage
people, and ignite social change. Or, as Participant CEO Jim Berk put it: Are viewers going to
be more interested in education policy, education-themed political campaigns, or initiatives than
they were before? Are they going to care about whats happening in Louisiana if they live in
California?

Emotional Impact

Flawed as it may have been, the film still packed a strong emotional punch. Anecdotally, many
supporters of the film believed that the film succeeded in making education part of viewers lists of
worries even if they were satisfied with their local schools or not connected to the education
system.

I encounter a lot of people who say that Waiting For Superman was a moment of real awakening,
that they didnt understand that things were as bad as they were, said Moskovitz. I think it had a
big impact in terms of peoples awareness of the national quagmire were in, it was huge in that
respect.

The film shattered any preconceptions about low-income minority parents you might have
coming into the movie, said Rhee, who says she cried when she first saw the film at the Goethe
Institute in DC.
46


In many, many screenings in many, many cities people were moved by the experience of watching
the movie, said Guggenheim. With AIT they were stunned, but with Superman they were
viscerally moved.

Emotionally, it was always a very hard thing for me to watch, said former Gates Foundation
officer Greg Shaw. Even now, telling you the story I feel emotional about it. You fall in love with
those kids, you just want so badly whats going to be good for them.
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Real-World Impact

There were also a handful of direct (if small-scale) real-world effects stemming from the creation
and distribution of the movie, including the creation of the Huffington Post education page, the
estimated $2 million in classroom donations that resulted from ticket sales and a partnership with
DonorsChoose, and increased interest and additional funding for some of those nonprofits
and schools who participated.
47


This was huge for us, said SEED co-founder Eric Adler, who had gone to high school with
Guggenheim. We quickly became recognized as one of the schools in the film, which gave us
increased credibilityto go to new communities, to talk to new legislators, and have stakeholders
know our name helped start critical conversations for expansion. Three years later, people still
recognized SEEDs name from the film.

There are a couple of financial supporters we have who werent involved until they watched that
movie, said Rhee. It did something to them, now they are the biggest supporters of StudentsFirst
[the education advocacy group Rhee started after leaving Washington, DC].

Years afterwards, educators would still come up to Guggenheim and say that theyd entered
teaching or started a school because of the film. It happens to me all the time, he said. There
are people who have been moved and their life course has been changed from seeing the movie,
he said.

Broader Effects

Beyond these concrete if somewhat narrow impacts, however, it was hard to tell.

Some claims were verifiable, at least in theory: According to Participant, the film led to classroom
donations helping nearly 3 million students and a letter writing campaign used to send more than
50,000 letters and petition signatures supporting innovation and high standards in our public
schools to national, state and local policymakers.
48
The coffee table book reached #1 on the New
York Times bestseller list, and the effort won 182,000 Facebook fans and 12,000 Twitter followers.
In only six weeks after the launch of the Social Action campaign for Superman, education became
the #3 issue for Americans, according to Participant.

But as in education evaluation the most easily counted measures werent necessarily the best.
Filmmakers could and did claim pretty much any intermediary result that they wanted. And
some of Participants claims werent easily counted or linked to the movie.

For example, Participant claimed that some of the changes that took place just before the movie
came out the closing of the rubber rooms in New York City and the passage of the union
contract in DC, for example were a result of the approaching premier date. They were trying to
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get out ahead of the films release, said Berk, a former Los Angeles teacher and magnet school
principal.

And according to Participants promotional materials, efforts that flowed from the film included
the creation of Rhees StudentsFirst, the use of the parent trigger, and a February 2011 speech
from the AFT about revamping teacher evaluation and tenure. Publicity materials also mentioned
the Common Core adoption by 40-plus states, changes in teacher tenure and salary systems by 18
states, and nearly 500 new charter schools.

But there was no real way to link the movie to these events, and the films main goal was to change
the way viewers felt about education rather than to spur any particular event. Thats what funders
and advocates wanted measurable large-scale impact directly attributable to the movie.
49


About larger effects, Guggenheim himself wasnt so sure. The impact of a movie is hard to
measure, and may never be completely measured.

Evaluation Efforts

Perhaps most importantly for our long-term understanding of how movies impact audience
behavior, a pair of subsequent external evaluations tried to tease out the effects of Superman over
time, relying on a variety of evaluation methods and approaches that have been cropping up
around social issue advocacy campaigns.

Ford Foundation Evaluation (2011). Curious about what the impact of Superman might be and
whether it was even possible to evaluate the impact of a documentary film the Ford Foundation
in 2010 hired a New York City-based nonprofit called the Harmony Institute to measure the
impact of the film beyond audience and box office numbers.

For six months, Harmony attempted to evaluate the narrative influence of the film on audiences
and institutions, and the degree to which Superman impacted opinions and programs on education
reform following its release.

Harmony also attempted to measure what aspects of the film most affected viewers, and to discern
if there were any ripple effects on participants or subjects of the film.

According to a six-page summary posted online in 2011, the evaluation found that most of those
who saw the movie remembered key facts afterward and expressed an interest in learning more.
50


The film had a notable effect on audience perceptions of education in the US and increased
general understanding and elevated concerns over a number of problems plaguing public
education.

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Overall, general audiences and the press reviewed the film favorably, giving the film an average
rating of four stars out of a possible five. However, debate about the film was limited to online
education circles rather than broader parent groups, according to the evaluation, and the movie
and related efforts were unable to foster a national conversation among those not previously
invested in the education reform debate. Education professionals were much more critical of the
film than general viewers, giving the film an average of two stars and challenging the films
depiction of teachers and unions as simplistic.

If the movie was an attempt to smear teachers and unions, it failed. Superman audiences did not
leave theaters anti-union and instead, walked away with a more moderate view on teachers
unions. Said one focus group member: They pointed out some things that need to be
changed...but I didnt come out with the mentality that we need to scrap unions.

Audiences felt that the film failed to discuss many of the larger social issues that contribute to
low-performing students and schools. According to the Harmony Institute report, viewers also felt
that there was a general overemphasis on charter schools.
51


Half of the films press coverage presented general solutions, yet when solutions were raised in the
film, viewers felt there were few clear directives for individuals. Viewers complained that the
instructions for immediate action get involved in your childs education were confusingly
vague and offered no actionable items for individuals.

USC Study (2013). Neither Participant nor the filmmakers were involved in the Harmony Institute
study, and Participant officials said that based on the summary it was incomplete and did not
capture the full scope of its efforts and impacts. Right now its our gut check and anecdotal
information, said Berk. Thats not good enough for us.

And so Participant decided to fund its own evaluation of the film, which it hoped would be more
comprehensive and perhaps more favorable to the film.

Hired by Participant in 2012, academics and statisticians at the University of Southern California
(USC) launched a study in November 2012 and presented unpublished preliminary findings to
Participant in July 2013. The USC study asked two key questions: Which variables influenced
someones likelihood of watching Superman? What was the impact of watching on knowledge and
behavior?

According to the findings presented to Participant, viewers learned key concepts from the film,
compared to other likely viewers who hadnt actually seen it, and were more likely to take action
afterwards. In particular, they were more likely to look for more information about public
education, encourage their friends to demand better schools, donate books or materials, and
volunteer or mentor.
52


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These were considered positive results. This helps [Participant] make some claims about the
success of their efforts, said USCs Johanna Blakley, and was somewhat unexpected given how
complicated and contradictory education issues can be (compared to food safety and other more
visceral issues). I just presumed that Superman would be far more of a disappointment, she
said.

However, not all the results were good. The study showed that the movie had relatively weak
effects on motivating viewers to take larger organizational actions such as joining an association.
Respondents were more likely to do little things that they can do in their individual lives that
make them feel good, said Blakley. Theyre not necessarily going to go and join some big group.
Nor were viewers more likely to ask public officials to improve public education or join a local
education organization.

The actions that werent taken are the ones that indicate political engagement and organizational
engagement a commitment to a group with a shared interest, noted the USC report, which
remains unpublished.

Part V: Movies as Advocacy

Can social impact campaigns like Superman have any immediate or long-term impact? The evidence
is mixed. Superman has thus far failed to galvanize any widespread, concrete actions or long-term
changes in public beliefs or behaviors that we know of, and served as a call to action for school
reform critics opposed to efforts being undertaken by the Obama administration and several major
education philanthropies.

However, the documentary also brought enormous, if short-lived, popular attention to the
challenges facing public education, including especially the lack of enough good schools for
parents to send their kids to; reinforced the notion that at least some students could overcome
social disadvantages; and generated a small but notable set of real-world impacts.

This being the case, it is worth considering what lessons can be drawn from the making of
Superman both related to the specific film and the larger issue of social impact campaign and
evaluations in general.

Make sure that the campaigns main characters are diverse enough to engage a broad set of viewers:
Even the films harshest critics admit that the stories of the families trying to get a better education
for their children are moving and authentic. The focus on five families trying to find better
schooling than the automatic options provided a strong dramatic tension and resolution for the
movie. Even those most opposed to the film were unable to attack the parents for wanting whats
best for their children, or the lack of enough schools that parents want to send their kids to.

However, four of the families depicted in the movie were urban minorities with little ability to
move or pay for private school on their own. There were no rural families, or Asian American
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families. And by making himself the narrator, Guggenheim was in some basic sense making
himself the protagonist of the film and the central figure in the publicity efforts that followed.
Being neither an expert in education nor a public school parent, he was an easy target for critics of
the film.

Make sure that the campaign addresses broad, fundamental issues not just one narrow situation:
Superman focused narrowly on failing district schools and effective charter schools. All of the five
families were focused on charter options rather than magnets, special programs, or considering
relocation. Including other configurations magnet school lotteries, for example, or
neighborhood attendance boundaries would have prevented viewers from being distracted by the
charter school issue and allowed them to focus on the under-supply of effective schools in some
areas and limits on parents ability to find better options.

Depicting the lack of good enough district schools and the anguish of middle-class and affluent
parents trying to find good options for their children would have inoculated the film from
several criticisms and highlighted the near-universal issue of too few quality schools for parents to
choose from. Roughly 10,000 students apply for 350 spots at Chicagos Whitney Young Magnet
High School each year, according to a documentary about the school thats slated to come out in
2015. Superman didnt raise enough visceral concerns for anyone but those already interested in
education and the poorest of poor parents who cant afford to relocate, afford private school, or
maneuver into a special program of some kind (magnet, themed, special education).

Resist the urge to be comprehensive: Superman was basically two films one focused on the five
children and their families, the other telling the broader story of dysfunctional schools. In
attempting to be comprehensive, the film is long, broad, and somewhat overwhelming in the
amount of information it provides. Theres an enormous amount of exposition, helped only
somewhat by animated graphics, clips from pop culture, and Guggenheims voiceover.

I just thought he was covering a lot of ground, said Nina Rees, current president of the National
Alliance of Public Charter Schools. I know this topic, and I thought it was a lot. To the lay
audience, it was sending too many signals of things that were wrong.

While An Inconvenient Truth gave viewers a coherent argument, said filmmaker Gordon Quinn,
Superman was a mess.

Its OK to be critical and controversial to a point: On one hand, those behind the film may have
been surprised and concerned that the reaction to the films criticism of teachers unions and
district schools would narrow or limit the films audience. On the other hand, they knew that the
controversy could help make education top of mind in local communities and nationally. We
kind of believe that we had a tiger by the tail, said Participants social action head John Schreiber.

The conversation came close but never tipped over into focusing on the controversy, according to
Paramounts Megan Colligan. Many others would disagree. Superman was brilliant at stirring up
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parents and policymakers (and winning awards), but its attack on teachers and their unions just
further polarized everyone, said documentary filmmaker Bob Compton, who helped make 2008s
Two Million Minutes.

In the absence of vivid new footage showing teachers not knowing their material or caring about
their students, the case against teachers and their unions fell flat.

Its worth noting that in recent years the Gates Foundation has engaged in several efforts to make
nice with teachers and unions, including grants to the AFT and New York Times op-eds opposed to
sharing teachers performance ratings publicly.
53


Be prepared to be misunderstood intentionally or otherwise and to counter these arguments:
Superman and other recent education films (e.g. Wont Back Down) illustrate vividly the need for
those making these efforts to be prepared for their efforts and intentions to be misunderstood or
mischaracterized or adopted by others (as Republican lawmakers did to the school reform agenda
in 2010 and 2011). The film generated a strong response from reform critics and others, and in
many ways served as a handy point of mobilization and convergence for disparate groups. Surprise,
genuine or feigned, at this kind of response is no replacement for a clear response refocusing
attention wherever it is most needed. In addition, any evaluation of Supermans impact should
probably include an assessment of its critics response and whatever headway they may have made
in the opposite direction to the films aims.

Come up with focused, concrete action items for viewers and policymakers to take: The
filmmakers were presenting a problem without much of a solution. Moved and outraged as some
viewers might be, they werent really sure what to do with those emotions. The movies most
concrete and successful ask was to support classroom instruction via DonorsChoose. Viewers
were urged to attend board meetings and write candidates. Viewers were told that the power to
make things better lay within their own hands, in their own communities, but beyond that they
were on their own.

If you want people to act, they need specific, concrete, and personally satisfying steps they can
take, noted AEIs Hess.
54
For Superman, Hess proposed specific items like (a) gathering emails in
preparation for future local school board and state legislature races, (b) flooding the zone on a key
vote or decision thats about to take place (mayoral control, licensure requirements leg), and (c)
charter school and tenure laws, building new grassroots outfits.
55


Consider Alternatives to Short-Term Advocacy Evaluations: Education nonprofits and funders are
relatively new to advocacy, and also to evaluating such efforts, and might consider alternatives to
the kinds of evaluations that are used to measure the effects of programs and services.

Indeed, there are some political scientists who believe that advocacy is much more uncertain and
its impact much less linear and slower to emerge than education advocates understand or
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funders are willing to tolerate. Effective advocacy is difficult, and evaluating whether various
approaches are working is even harder, write Teles and Schmitt.
56


The political process, they continue, is chaotic and often takes years to unfold, making it
difficult to use traditional measures to evaluate the effectiveness of advocacy organizations. The
scientific model is inappropriate and other attempts to generate specific, quantifiable measures
could lead funders astray, they write. Instead, funders must learn to understand the complex,
foggy chains of causality in politics, which make evaluating particular projects as opposed to
entire fields or organizations almost impossible.
57


Postscript: Four Years Later

There doesnt appear to be any shortage of funders and advocates interested in pursuing the social
impact approach. Several more films, documentary and otherwise, have been released since
Superman, including Wont Back Down, 180 Days, If You Build It, and The New Public. Participants
next big education documentary, called Ivory Tower, is slated for release this month.
58


Efforts to evaluate Superman and films like it also continue to unfold. Harmony is currently
working on a tool that will allow funders and nonprofits to compare the social impact of their
efforts within various categories (environment, health, etc.). Scheduled for beta testing this
summer, the Harmony web application will include 25-30 education films across three
subcategories (education policy, school climate and safety, teaching and learning).
59


Participant requested more research from USC, which has been completed but is not available
publicly. In the meantime, the Gates and Knight Foundations have funded the creation of a Media
Impact Project at USC to evaluate other social action campaigns.
60


Last but not least, heres what we know about the students and schools featured in the film:

Westminster Avenue Elementary, the local school that Guggenheim declined to send his own
children to at the start of the film, has gotten somewhat better. But the school was still less than 10
percent white. Guggenheim bought tickets to send teachers and kids from Westminster
Elementary to see the movie, and has kept in contact with the principal and some teachers there.
Its improving incrementally, he said

For 2013-2014, Emily Jones was a first-year student at the University of Portland who planned on
being a teacher, according to Summit Prep. She is incredibly passionate about working with
students, and of course, we hope to have her teach at Summit one day, explained Mira Brown,
chief external officer. She has already started to do some classroom teaching through her
program.

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Anthony Black was a 10
th
grader and a classic sixteen year old, according to SEED DC head of
school Charles Adams. The residence-based network was planning to expand to Miami in
September 2014.

With help from local philanthropists, Daisy attended a private school, says KIPP LA chief
academic officer Angella Martinez. And Daisys sister was enrolled at KIPP LA Prep.

Two other New York City students who didnt get into their schools of choice onscreen Bianca
Hill and Francisco Regalado were unreachable. Citing privacy concerns, producer Lesley Chilcott
declined to provide information about what kinds of schools they were currently attending.

We want to respect their privacy and not get into whats happened to them, said Guggenheim.
People shouldnt be worried about Bianca [individually] but rather about the million other kids
like her.













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1. Participant Media, TEACH Final Press Notes, http://www.participantmedia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10/TEACHPressNotesFINAL.docx.
2. Neil Genzlinger, A Soft Pitch on Education From a Hard Hitter: Davis Guggenheim Goes to School With New
Film, New York Times, September 5, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/arts/television/davis-guggenheim-
goes-to-school-with-new-film.html?_r=0.
3. Participant Media, Waiting for Superman Campaign Impact, http://www.takepart.com/waiting-for-
superman/impact.
4. Unless otherwise noted, all direct quotations are taken from telephone interviews or e-mail conversations with the
author.
5. Trip Gabriel, Remedial Study for Failing Public Schools, New York Times, September 17, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/movies/19superman.html?pagewanted=all.
6. Rick Hess, We Don't Do Propaganda, Rick Hess Straight Up blog, July 12, 2010,
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2010/07/we_dont_do_propaganda.html.
7. Samuel Goldwyn quotes, Goodreads, http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/150521.Samuel_Goldwyn.
8. Steven Teles and Mark Schmitt, The Elusive Craft of Evaluating Advocacy, Stanford Social Innovation Review,
Summer 2011, http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_elusive_craft_of_evaluating_advocacy.
9. Sarah Reckhow, Gates Shifts Strategy & Schools Get Smaller Share, This Week In Education blog, February 5,
2013, http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2013/02/shifting-strategies-at-gates-who-
wins.html#.U5cQBFOZiSp.
10. Liza Dittoe, ED in 08 Partners with Documentary Filmmakers to Sound Alarm about the Education Crisis in
America, http://www.2mminutes.com/pressblog3.asp.
11. Participant Media, Our History, March 2013, http://www.participantmedia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/03/PM-History-3.3.13.pdf.
12. Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, Changing the World Through Storytelling, Philanthropy Roundtable, Fall
2013,
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_philanthropy/changing_the_world_through_storytellin
g.
13. The First Year: Production, Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/firstyear/production.
14. Trip Gabriel, Remedial Study for Failing Public Schools, New York Times, September 17, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/movies/19superman.html?pagewanted=all.
15. Denis Faye, Waiting for Supermans Davis Guggenheim & Billy Kimball, Writers Guild of America,
http://www.wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=4368.
16. Amanda Ripley, Waiting for Superman: A Call to Action for Our Schools, TIME, September 23, 2010,
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2019663_2020590_2020592,00.html.
17. Thomas Friedman, Hope in the Unseen, New York Times, May 25, 2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/opinion/25friedman.html.
18. Lesley Chilcott, interview distributed by Participant during Sundance Film Festival, 2010.
19. Sam Dillon, Behind Grass-Roots School Advocacy, Bill Gates, New York Times, May 22, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/education/22gates.html?pagewanted=all.
20. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Annual Letter 2010, http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-
Are/Resources-and-Media/Annual-Letters-List/Annual-Letter-2010; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Annual
Letter 2011, http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Media/Annual-Letters-List/Annual-
Letter-2011.
21. Anne Thompson, Paramount Acquires Guggenheim Doc Waiting for Superman, Indiewire.com, January 21,
2010,
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/paramount_acquires_guggenheim_doc_waiting_for_superman.
22. NewSchools, Breakout #4: Schools Hit the Big Screen: Influencing the Public Mindset,NewSchools Venture Fund
blog, May 12, 2010, http://www.newschools.org/blog/breakout-4-schools-hit-the-big-screen-influencing-the-public-
mindset.
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23. Waiting for Superman: A film screening and discussion (Aspen Ideas Festival, Aspen, CO, Summer 2010),
http://www.aspenideas.org/session/waiting-superman.
24. Bishop and Green, Changing the World Through Storytelling.
25. Active Voice, Waiting for "Superman" Community Discussion Guide, 2011, http://activevoice.net/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/WaitingForSuperman_CommunityDiscussionGuide-low-res-1.pdf.
26. John Springer, "Obama: Money without reform wont fix schools," TODAY, September 27, 2010,
http://www.today.com/id/39378576#.Ut04vBAo5D8.
27. David Jackson, Obama meets students featured in 'powerful' film on education, USA Today, October 11, 2010,
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/10/obama-meets-students-featured-in-powerful-film-
on-education/1?utm_source=twtr&utm_medium=social#.U5cQnFOZiSq.
28. Meet The Press, first broadcast September 26, 2010 by NBC. Directed by Rob Melick and written by Betsy Fischer
Martin.
29. A year later, the movie would warrant its own chapter in Steven Brills book, Class Warfare, with the somewhat
mocking title: School Reform: The Movie. (Ironic, since Brills book might well have been titled, School Reform: The Book.)
30. Some of the seemingly endless social action activities included an iPhone app, tweets from Will Smith and P.
Diddy, not one but two Oprah shows, and appearances by the WFS kids at the Peoples Choice awards. More than 20
celebrities taped favorite teacher videos. Access Hollywood would do a segment on the effort. T. Bone Burnett
hosted concerts in Boston and New York at which Elton John, Elvis Costello, and others performed. Promo videos
were featured at 24 concerts including the Black Eyed Peas and Justin Bieber.
31. Stephen Holden, Waiting for Superman (2010): Students Caught in the School Squeeze, New York Times,
September 23, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/movies/24waiting.html.
32. According to some, Guggenheim was a final cut director and so nobody could make him change it. Nobody else
could edit the film, recalled the insider. They were not allowed to give notes [feedback on the film]. Guggenheim
said he didnt have final cut and didnt recall getting notes from anyone but Participant, and didnt recall them being
particularly strident. There was no, Take this out put that in, or, Were worried about this aspect of the film.
33. John Anderson, "Waiting for Superman" Variety, January 23, 2010,
http://variety.com/2010/film/reviews/waiting-for-superman-1117941947/.
34. Holden, Students Caught in the School Squeeze.
35. Steven Brill, Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).
36. Yoav Gonen, Get reel about education failures, New York Post, September 17, 2010.
37. Ben Smith, Union chief pans Waiting for Superman, Politico, September 9, 2010,
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0910/Union_chief_pans_Waiting_for_Superman.html.
38. Brill, Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools.
39. Waiting for Superman and Failing Public Schools, New York Times, September 25, 2010
40. Sharon Otterman, In Waiting for Superman, a Scene Isn't What It Seems, New York Times, November 2, 2010,
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/in-waiting-for-superman-a-scene-isnt-what-it-seems.
41. Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining
Education (New York: Perseus Books, 2010)
42. David Denby, School Spirit, The New Yorker, October 11, 2010,
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2010/10/11/101011crci_cinema_denby.
43. Motoko Rich, Magnet Schools Find a Renewed Embrace in Cities, New York Times, February 16, 2014.
44. Scott Thomas, (Informal Report, Magnet Schools of America, 2013).
45. In the end, the film ended up depicting one student (Anthony) finding out that he got into SEED DC via
telephone after having been waitlisted at the live lottery event.
46. A few years later, when her younger daughter would enter a Nashville lottery for a special magnet program, Rhee
and her family would stay home and watch the drawing on TV. We are not going to that thing, she told her family.
Thats too painful. Her daughter was not admitted and did not get in off the wait list.
47. The DonorsChoose partnership had been a late-breaking development. We knew it had to be something really
discrete and tangible that viewers could do right after they left the movie, said Charles Best, founder of
DonorsChoose. At the end of AIT, viewers were told to go out and replace their incandescent light bulbs with
fluorescents. We wanted to be the fluorescent light bulb.
Russo
How Waiting for Superman (Almost) Changed the World
27



48. Participant Media, TEACH Final press notes.
49. For example, a NBER paper released in early 2014 found that areas of the country where viewership of the MTV
reality show 16 and Pregnant was relative high saw measurable decreases in teen parenting compared to other regions
and general teen pregnancy trends. See Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine, Media Influences on Social Outcomes:
The Impact of MTV's 16 and Pregnant on Teen Childbearing (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research,
2014).
50. Coming in at 45 pages, the full report was never released. The Ford Foundation declined to provide access,
explaining that it was a first foray into social media evaluation that wasnt ready for wider distribution. The six-page
summary can be found at http://harmony-institute.org/wp
content/uploads/2011/07/WFS_Highlights_20110701.pdf.
51. Harmony Institute, Entertainment Evaluation Highlights: Waiting for Superman, May 2011, http://harmony-
institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/WFS_Highlights_20110701.pdf.
52. Johanna Blakley, Waiting for Superman Propensity Score Matching Results, Unpublished Manuscript
(University of Southern California, July 10, 2013).
53. Linda Shaw, Gates Foundation looking to make nice with teachers, Seattle Times, June 8, 2013,
http://seattletimes.com/html/education/2021149398_gatesfoundationteachersxml.html.
54. Rick Hess, The Limits of Cinematic Advocacy: Lessons from An Inconvenient Truth, Rick Hess Straight Up blog,
June 1, 2010.
55. Others thought that it was too much to ask a film to describe a problem and also propose solutions. I didnt think
that the filmmaker should be forced to come up with the solution when we havent been able to do so in 50 years,
said Moskowitz.
56. Teles and Schmitt, The Elusive Craft of Evaluating Advocacy.
57. Another way to measure the impact of a public awareness campaign like Superman might be to track its impact if
any on the status of the issue it addressed, perhaps using the Policy Agendas Project, now housed at the University of
Texas-Austin.
58. Participant Media, Participant Media and Paramount Home Media Distribution Collaborate on Distribution of
CNN Films Documentary Ivory Tower, March 19, 2014, http://www.participantmedia.com/2014/03/participant-
media-paramount-home-media-distribution-collaborate-distribution-cnn-films-documentary-ivory-tower.
59. Harmony Institute, A Better Way to Analyze Social Impact, accessed April 11, 2014, http://harmony-
institute.org/therippleeffect/2013/11/15/a-better-way-to-analyze-social-impact.
60. Media Impact Project, The Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for
Communication, http://www.mediaimpactproject.org.