Education is finally getting some deserved attention from the media with both high-profile film and television projects hitting the big and small screens virtually simultaneously.

At the movies, Waiting for Superman previewed last weekend with the highest per-screen box office of any movie in the country. Opening in just four theaters (two in New York, two in LA), it reportedly averaged about $35,000 per screen — placing it way ahead of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the overall number-one movie which reportedly took in about $5,000 per screen in 3,500 locations.

The documentary which takes on the education establishment, particularly teachers’ unions, seems poised to garner the same level of financial success as An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s environmental opus.  Coincidentally (or not) the two docs were both directed by Davis Guggenheim. That’s interesting because conservatives tended to be skeptical of Truth while liberals threw every honor they could at it (including two Oscars — best doc feature and best original song). Those opinions are likely to be nearly exactly  reversed (at least in elite circles) regarding Superman.

Being a conservative, I’m more or less pre-sold on the basic arguments put forth by Superman  and  hope all the attention and controversy it arouses leads to some serious reforms in the way we educate American kids — which, the films notes, now rank 25th in math and 21st in science among 30 industrialized countries. American kids do, however, rank #1 in confidence. Confidence, of course, being a good thing — so long as it doesn’t become delusional.

BTW, for more information on Waiting for Superman, you can check out the film’s website here.

Meanwhile, on television, NBC recently launched its Education Nation campaign and will debut its new reality show School Pride, best described as Extreme Makeover: School Edition in two weeks (Friday, October 16th).

And premiering tonight at 10 PM ET on A&E is another education-themed reality show called Teach which follows actor Tony Danza (Taxi, Who’s the Boss?) as he, cameras rolling, runs a 10th grade English  at Philadelphia’s Northeast High School. Danza, it should be noted, actually has a degree in history education.

While the producers, Mr. Danza and A&E may have their hearts in the right place in focusing attention on the challenges both teachers and students face every day, I’m a bit uncomfortable with the idea of a real-life classroom being subjected to the glare of TV — and to the medium’s need to stir up drama.

In fact, I’d rather see Danza’s TV comeback come in the form of an actual scripted dramedy dealing with education along the lines of the classically-idealistic Room 222 that aired on ABC from 1969 to 1974. (That show, BTW, also featured a great opening sequence and score, a lost art in current TV shows.)

Drama, particularly when it comes to ongoing series, is often better-suited to illuminating real-life issues and situations than reality shows which, too often, end up exploiting real people.

In any event, education is one of the most important issues facing America — and worthy of the media’s, and our, attention.