Waiting for ?Superman? is not the only education-reform documentary out there. Race to Nowhere, a film co-directed by Vicki Abeles and Jessica Congdon, posits not that America's schools can be too aimless, too lax, but that they can be too intense, too demanding. Abeles writes:
I saw the strain in my children as they navigated days filled with school, homework, tutoring and extracurricular activities. But it wasn't until the crisis of my 12-year-old daughter being diagnosed with a stress induced illness that I was determined to do something.
After months of long evenings battling homework assignments, studying for tests and panic attacks in the middle of the night, we found her doubled over in pain, and rushed her to the emergency room. Her cheerful fa?ade and determination to keep up had masked her symptoms to us, to her friends and to her teachers . . .
So I picked up a camera and began to assemble a team of film professionals.
John Merrow offers his thoughts on the documentary; so, too, does Sheri Linden for the Los Angeles Times.
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow