The Verona Municipal Alliance Committee has let us know that on Friday, February 25, Montclair Kimberley Academy will be screening Race to Nowhere, a movie that chronicles the impact of the pressure to excel on America’s school children and is, in many respects, a corollary of the “Tiger Mom” phenomenon that Tracy Bermeo wrote about two weeks ago. Race to Nowhere is one of two high-profile documentaries about education in America that have been released in the last year, and it paints a very troubling picture about what schools, parents and standardized testing are doing to students that are among America’s brightest.
Tickets to attend the screening are $10 plus a service charge and you can buy them through the Race to Nowhere‘s ticketing Web site. If you can’t attend the screening at MKA, Congregation Agudath Israel will be showing the movie on March 10. It will also be shown in Millburn, Maplewood and Roseland; the full list of screening sites is here. If you haven’t yet heard the buzz about this movie, watch the trailer.
I highly recommend this documentary..especially in lieu of what is going on with the Verona’s push for more “AP” classes to be more competitive. While many highly respected school districts (such as Ridgewood)are following the “advice” of this movie to alleviate the stress on students, Verona seems somehow to be moving in the opposite direction. Maybe this mindset is 20 years behind the times, just like our curriculum!