Hugh Reilly: Superhuman effort is needed for progress

The closest I have come to meeting a superhero occurred early in my career when I taught in a school where the headmaster had acquired the nickname Batman, on account of his penchant for wearing an academic gown. It would be fair to say Batman did not perceive me to be a boy wonder. On one occasion, when I s-s-stuttered while explaining why I had misunderstood his instruction, he shouted: "You need a transmitter as well as a receiver!" Holy humiliation, Batman!

As a classroom teacher, I've never thought of myself as some kind of Superman; indeed, a glance at my picture on this page would confirm that, thanks to hereditary male pattern baldness, I spookily resemble Lex Luthor.

Superman would find living in Glasgow tough. The thought of performing a costume change in a phone box that doubles as a toilet for drunken late-night revellers might cause Clark Kent to consider leaving the rescue of a minibus full of kids stuck on a level crossing to the emergency services.

But what's this? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Waiting for Superman, a controversial documentary exploring the perceived failings of the US education system. Directed by Davis Guggenheim (of An Inconvenient Truth fame), the movie has received critical acclaim but been lambasted by teacher organisations.

It follows the lives of five youngsters who seem destined to attend the local drop-out factories, ie; failing schools. Their only hope of receiving a first-class education lies in winning a place at a Bill Gates-funded "charter" school. Certainly, nobody could accuse charter schools of elitism - pupils are randomly chosen by public lottery.

There are lies, damned lies and a tad unhelpful set of statistics highlighting the depressed state of education across the pond. In terms of international comparison, the US ranks 25th for achievement in maths and 21st for science. The same study shows American children take first place for confidence - more proof, if it were needed, of the often inverse proportion nature of the relationship between self-esteem and achievement.

In Waiting for Superman, teaching unions act like kryptonite on the efforts to raise attainment. They challenge a decision by the head of education to fire more than 200 teachers on grounds of incompetence and resist her plan to introduce performance-related pay.

In New York, a group of teachers protested outside the screening of the documentary, claiming the real causes of low attainment - poverty, large class sizes and inadequate resources - are ignored by the filmmakers.

To be fair, the producers bewail the low status and poor pay of American teachers. Removing job security and implementing a pay package based on student performance would result in higher salaries and a more motivated, focused workforce, the argument goes.

Rewarding excellence in the classroom is a worthy goal but largely impractical.I've taught in schools where the names of most of the pupils have been reported to Crimestoppers. In these so-called "sink schools", a chalkie works miracles in stressful circumstances to produce results that would be deemed to be dire, or at best, mediocre in magnet schools.

If the documentary is to be believed, the current generation of Americans is less literate than its predecessor, an appalling indictment of the education system.

But creating charter schools is not the answer. The solution is to raise the standards in all public schools by addressing some of the socio-economic factors that hinder teaching and learning. For example, almost 70 per cent of African-American children are born to single mothers. Furthermore, the poverty rate for blacks is three times higher than that of whites, and more than 40 per cent of prison inmates are African-American.

The link between poverty and low attainment is well established. Until the lives of the disadvantaged are improved, not even Superman can save American education.