It's the documentary everyone's talking about. Waiting For "Superman" is a gripping story about the state of public school systems in America, told through the eyes of five hopeful students. Each is eager to get an education, but in a system riddled with ineffective teachers, staggering dropout rates and schools that are literally falling apart, the odds are more than stacked against them.

Meet each of the five children and read their stories.

Their only hope is to enter a lottery to win the opportunity to enter a high-performing charter school that will provide them with the education they need to succeed.

Waiting For "Superman" director and Oscar® winner Davis Guggenheim, the man who also brought us An Inconvenient Truth, hopes this story starts a nationwide conversation about America's public schools.

"I remember when I was 5 years old, I asked my mother, 'Why do I take a 45-minute bus ride to go to school [in another city]?' And she said, 'Because the schools in our city are broken,'" Davis says.

Forty years later, Davis drives his own children past three public schools to a private school—but he says he's haunted by the other children who are being left behind.

"I just could not escape the fact that I was driving by these schools and not doing my part," he says. "I was helping my kids, but what about other people's children? How can I make a movie that will make parents care about other people's children as much as we care about our own?"

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