Rhoda Bernard, Ed.D.

Race to Nowhere, a film by parent Vicki Abeles, explores two main themes:

a. Stress in children and adolescents that is brought on by school pressures and homework pressures; and

b. Issues in education, including the purpose of education, the role of No Child Left Behind, and the need for more creativity, project-based learning, and critical thinking in schools.

This film is a great companion piece to Waiting for Superman, as it helps to complexify many of the aspects of education and education reform that (in my view) receive superficial treatment in the much more widely released Superman. Taken together, the two films do a good job of stimulating conversation about public education in the United States. My concern is that the very limited release of Race to Nowhere will not make it possible for many people to see it. And I do recommend highly that anyone interested in public education see this film.

Race to Nowhere shows good teaching in public schools and shares a great deal of footage of public school teachers talking about their work and about issues in education. This single aspect of Race to Nowhere is bound to please the vociferous critics of Waiting for Superman, who point to the lack of teacher voices and examples of public school teaching one of Superman’s glaring flaws. In Race to Nowhere, excellent public school teachers and their perspectives on education are celebrated. I fell in love with the high school English teacher in Oakland, California who speaks about the ways that the federal, state, and district-level pressures affected her work on a daily basis. I was fascinated by the teaching footage of the math teacher turned tutor who spoke about tutoring as the way that he felt he could best make a difference with individual students. I practically burst out of my seat listening to the teacher who described the issues with education reform as stemming from our nation’s philosophy on the purpose of education and the nature of success in our country.

Race to Nowhere highlights the role of No Child Left Behind in education by focusing on the pressures that the legislation creates for schools, teachers, and students. There has been relatively little discussion about the ways that the pressures placed on schools to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress in their test scores impact administrators, teachers, and students. Today’s public schools have become obsessed with test score numbers. The curriculum has narrowed to the point where all that students learn is how to answer test questions correctly. And the pressure on students to perform at a certain level on the tests turns into increased demands for homework and classwork that are unrealistic. Waiting for Superman mentions No Child Left Behind, but says nothing of the effect that this legislation has had on school culture, curriculum, teaching, as well as teachers and students.

Race to Nowhere asks difficult questions about what it means to be successful in the US today. According to the students, parents, teachers, administrators, and professors interviewed in the film, the message that students receive today is that success means making attending a highly selective college, making a great deal of money, and living in a large house. This image of success negates such things as doing work that you love, enjoying leisure activities that bring you joy and satisfaction, being happy, being creative, being a part of a community, and having a family. What harm we are doing by sending this message to today’s students.

Race to Nowhere underscores that the  issues in public education today are complex, and that in order to address them, many things must be done on many levels. There is absolutely no “silver bullet” mentality in this film. The complexity of the issues in education is acknowledged in the film, and the difficult and varied work ahead with a number of constituencies and institutions is discussed.

At the same time, I do wish that the film spent a bit more time exploring the role that parents play in the pressures on their children. I wonder about the baby boomer generation of parents and what their role is in terms of the stresses that their children feel. One family in the film speaks about changing their behavior at home by not asking about homework and not asking about grades. Is there something unique to the baby boomer parent generation that has made homework and grades a part of more family conversations?

Overall, I am very glad that I saw Race to Nowhere, and I highly recommend that anyone interested in education see both Race to Nowhere and Waiting for Superman. Together, these films provide food for thought and fuel for discussion about public education in the US today and what we might need to consider as we go forward.

In episode seven (which I believe is the final installment in this series), Tony Danza refers to himself as “just some shmo who thinks he’s a teacher.” In my view, this is an accurate description of Tony Danza as we have seen him throughout this reality TV series.

Episode seven focuses on Tony’s inability to stand firm behind deadlines. He told his students that he would not accept late homework, and now the students don’t do their homework. He assigns an essay, and many students do not pass it in. He responds to this situation by being loosey-goosey with extensions for a little while (right up until when his grades are due). Once again, Tony has trouble being an authority figure and incorporating authority into his teaching.

But what was perhaps most difficult for Tony in this episode was hearing from his principal that he is not connecting effectively with all of his students, and that some students report feeling invisible in his classroom. All along, Tony has seen the value of caring for his students – perhaps going too far in that direction by becoming more of a friend than a teacher. But he doesn’t seem to treat his students equally. In particular, he tends to connect more closely with students who remind him of himself – often boys who tend to get into trouble. But all of Tony’s students need him. They all want a relationship with him. They all want him to care about them.

At the end of the episode, Tony says, “I love this job.” He may love it, but he has a long, long way to go if he wants to become an effective teacher.

In this episode, we see that Tony continues to struggle with his role. Towards the end of the show, he says that there are so many things that one can be with the students – mentor, teacher, guidance counselor, friend – but that he believes that “you gotta be the teacher first.” While Tony talks the talk about the teacher role, he doesn’t yet have a good grasp of it. Specifically, he does not act as an adult authority figure with his students. Instead, he acts as a loving friend. A good teacher combines these two roles, but Tony can’t seem to find a way to take on his position of authority.

When he suspects two boys of cheating on a test (one boy was texting the answers to the other boy), Tony does not handle the situation like a teacher. He does not provide swift, logical consequences. He says that he wants the boys to admit that they were cheating – which they do not do – and he assigns them a report on the test material. Cheating on a test should have immediate consequences for the students involved and should not be handled in a namby, pamby way. There should be zero tolerance for cheating. Tony doesn’t have the tools to handle this situation.

In another very telling scene, Tony leaves the classroom in tears after the students do not settle down. He walks out of the room, leaving the students alone during their class period. He stands in the hallway and cries. The students exit the classroom at the end of the period, and many of them stop and ask Tony if he is all right. This is not acceptable. Tony should not put himself in a position where his students are taking care of him. He is the adult in the classroom, and he needs to pull himself together and not let the students see that their behavior is affecting him so deeply. Several of the students later say that Tony’s tears were not appropriate. The incident results in the students creating a card for Tony where they say that they are sorry. When they present the card to him the next day, he is visibly moved. Clearly, the students care about Tony and feel that he cares for them. But they do not respect his authority, and Tony has not exerted his authority appropriately.

Tony has a lot to learn about being the teacher first and what that means.