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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Leonie Haimson: Fact-checking Waiting for 'Superman': Documentary or Urban Myth?

Leonie Haimson: Fact-checking Waiting for 'Superman': Documentary or Urban Myth?

Leonie Haimson

Leonie Haimson

Posted: January 3, 2011 05:29 PM

In the movie Waiting for "Superman", nominated for an Oscar as the best Documentary of 2010, the following statement is made:

" ...in Illinois, 1 in 57 doctors loses his or her medical license, and 1 in 97 attorneys loses his or her law license, but only 1 teacher in 2500 has ever lost his or her credentials."

Since the movie was released, these figures have been repeated frequently. They take up five pages in the Google search engine, were cited in the NY Times review of the film, the British newspaper the Independent, as well as by Brian Williams of NBC in the television program Education Nation.

But apparently not a single one of these news outlets, or the makers of Waiting for "Superman",