Waiting for Superman

In class we watched a movie called Waiting for Superman.  It talked about how some inner city schools are really suffering and are not doing their best to teach students.  The movie talked about the fact that there are over 2,000 'drop out factories' in the United States.  These are schools were most of the students drop out before they graduate.  Administrators, teachers, students, and parents all know they are called this, but they continue to run and allow students to drop out.  This is insane to me.  If there is one thing that screams HELP! to me is that.  There is no way I would send my kids to a school like that unless I had absolutely no other option.  Even if it was my only option, I think that the administrators and teachers need to make an effort to change how the school is seen.  One fact that was shared in the movie is that 68% if inmates in prisons are dropouts.  $33,000 is spent on each inmate, for that same amount of money we could have sent that inmate to a private school and still had money left over to put towards college.  This is ridiculous, especially now when we are in debt and are having to cut so many things especially in education.  First, what the hell are we giving our inmates if we spend that kind of money on them, second, if we invest more into each child who is currently going through school, think of the money we could save later!  Not only the money, but think of what each one of those kids could contribute to society instead of filling up prisons.  Another concept in the movie that really shocked me was the idea of 'Passing the Lemons.'  This is the idea of passing around teachers who are no good at their job and they along with everyone else in the school system knows they are terrible teachers.  Since they are tenured, they cannot be fired, so they are passed along between schools hoping that the 'Lemon' they get in is better than the 'Lemon' they tossed away.  I am sorry but this is just stupid.  We saw on the movie that some of these teachers literally sat at their desk reading the newspaper while the students did whatever they wanted.  What are those students learning in that scenario? That education is pointless because my teacher doesn't even think I am worth their time?  How sad.  If someone in any other profession went to work and did that type of thing they would be gone in a heartbeat and it would be unlikely that they would be able to hold another position.  So why do we allow it with teachers, those people who are leading our kids on their path to knowledge?  I am not saying that tenure is all together a bad thing, since hey job security sounds great to me, but on the other hand I do not think that it should be that solid that teachers can literally do nothing and administrators have absolutely no right to fire them.  In that respect I believe that teachers should be paid according to their performance.  The more they are helping and teaching their students, the more they get paid.  I believe that would act as motivation for teachers to stay up to date and to continue learning and incorporating new ideas into their classrooms.