Topic #1: Choice or Lack Thereof
In Waiting for “Superman,” the director, Davis Guggenheim, says that he is one of the lucky ones because he has a choice of sending his children to private schools instead of to the failing institutions in his neighborhood district. In your essay, discuss how the idea of choice or the power to choose in education is depicted in BOTH Jonathan Kozol’s book Savage Inequalities and Davis Guggenheim’s documentary film Waiting for “Superman.” How does the ability to choose (or lack thereof) impact this country’s public school system and the future of its children? You may want to consider this topic in terms of either the plight of families and children living in urban districts or the public administrators (e.g., principals, teachers, education reformers, etc.) who work in them.

Topic #2: Impediments to Educational Reform
Both Jonathan Kozol’s book Savage Inequalities and Davis Guggenheim’s documentary film Waiting for “Superman,” address the many factors that have and continue to contribute to the impediment of educational reforms and initiatives in U.S. public schools. In your essay, focus on BOTH works—Kozol’s book and Guggenheim’s movie—and discuss how and why initiatives to change America’s public schools in the name of improvement have been challenged or denied. What does this say about the state of public education today and Americans’ attitudes toward reforming it?