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.
