Waiting For The World To Change
Feb 15, 2011
[This blog is a guest contribution on the "Policy Potluck" blog series.] A few months back I went to see Waiting for Superman, the new documentary by Davis Guggenheim about the tragic state of the U.S. school system. The film follows five kids in different urban centers across America as they seek a better education than is being offered by the public school system. The education system in America, the film exhorts, is broken. It can be fixed, insist school reformers, if we decentralize and shift the focus from teachers and what they want to children and what they need. “Superman,” it turns out, is a symbol of the change we wish would happen—some outside force that we hope will swoop in and save the day. However, what the film wants us to realize is that as stakeholders in society, we (you and me) have the power to save our schools—and in so doing, can save our kids and communities.
The movie is one more feather in the cap of Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media, which aims to make films with a conscience. If you’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth, North Country, Darfur Now, or Fast Food Nation you’ve seen a Participant movie, notable for the fact that they educate as they entertain.
America is not alone in sounding the alarm about the state of the education system. What seems universal is the realization that we can no longer wait for “Superman.” Smart, but uneducated parents around the world know that the only way out of poverty and into a better life is through school. And, they are no longer content to settle for the status quo of teacher absenteeism and mediocre lesson plans.
In America and in forward-looking countries, individuals are taking the system on, and creating alternatives. However, change is often slow. Part of the struggle stems from the fact that the people most in need of change have the least power. Citizens with power and money can afford to send their children to private schools. For those without power and money, there are few options, and few ways to make change.
In America, the education revolution is happening, not through private schools, but through charter schools. Over one million students are enrolled in more than 3,500 schools in 40 states (plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico). Charter schools are public schools that aim to be transparent, accountable, and innovative. Many use new approaches to teaching and offer an alternative to traditional public schooling. Places in these schools are highly sought after, and can often mark the difference between dropping out and moving ahead to higher education.
In countries like China, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Uganda, we are also seeing innovations in educational opportunities, provided by supermen (and women) who want a better future for their community, and in some cases their countries. In these countries, waiting for the government to provide for its people is like waiting for a train that will never come. So individuals are taking on the problem themselves and starting private schools that charge affordable fees. These schools offer accountability and transparency. Professor James Tooley, a leader in the affordable private school education sphere, estimates that 100 million students around the world are attending these schools.
Many of these movements are one-off—a person in a village starts a school to benefit his or her own community. However, some entrepreneurs have broader visions. Venkatesh Chandrasekaran is the head of research and development for Mahindra Satyam who is determined to take the affordable private education model to scale. Chandrasekaran plans to start, not one or two or even a handful of schools; he believes he can build and run 6,000 schools across rural India over the next 10 years. In a market where there are estimated to be 75,000 of these schools, he would make a solid contribution. His approach is holistic; he foresees that India’s high growth rate will need to be supported by an educated workforce. Building schools in rural areas will not only educate the masses, but will also open up rural areas as manufacturing hubs and training centers, and change the entire fabric of the country.
Chandrasekaran and all the other supermen out there are stepping forward to fill gaps where government has failed. Even though India recently passed the Right to Education (RTE) Act mandating that all children up to eighth grade can access a free education, implementation is still a hurdle.
Part of the problem with changing the education system in the past has been that it is only a problem for the poor, and therefore, easily overlooked by those in power. It is only when we start to see the education system as integral to a country’s future success or failure that we all become part of the solution. It is visionary leaders, either charter school founders, school reformers, or school entrepreneurs who are paving the way.
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