Race to Nowhere Blog

  • Posted: Mar 23, 2013
    Sleeping Like a Baby, Learning at Warp Speed
    Vicki Abeles
    Check out this Wall Street Journal article by Dr. Alison Gopnick featuring the latest research on the learning that happens during sleep. Dr. Gopnik concludes "It's paradoxical to try to get children to learn by making them wake up early to get to school and then stay up late to finish thei...
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  • Posted: Mar 8, 2013
    Fearlessness in Oakland
    Vicki Abeles
    This past Saturday, I attended Temple Beth Abraham's screening of Race to Nowhere in Oakland, California. After the film, a local high school English teacher mediated a conversation between the parents, educators, and students in attendance. The discussion was both intimate and impassioned, but...
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  • Posted: Feb 19, 2013
    New Paltz Parents Urge: Less Homework
    Vicki Abeles
    Inspired by Race to Nowhere, parents in upstate New York are pushing back on what has become a round-the-clock schedule for many students. Claudia Forest, a licensed social worker and parent of a 10th grader notes that conscientious students like her daughter wind up working longer hours than m...
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  • Posted: Dec 27, 2012
    After Newton: Taking Time to Connect
    Vicki Abeles
    In the first hours after the shootings in Connecticut, I know I joined many parents in rushing home to my own kids. I had that visceral, heart-wrenching need to connect with them, to assure myself of their safety, and to just spend time being grateful. The Newtown shootings happened during Hanukkah...
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  • Posted: Dec 20, 2012
    No One Misses the Homework
    Vicki Abeles
      In Louis Menand's commentary on Francois Hollande's recent announcement that he'd abolish all homework for elementary and middle-grade students in France ("Today's Assignment," December 17th), Menand rightly suggests that American attitudes toward homework have rarel...
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  • Posted: Dec 13, 2012
    Once Upon a Time
    Vicki Abeles
    In "Race to Nowhere," students and families share their experiences navigating the lane changes and intersections in the speedway that today's education system has become. At last week's screening of "Race to Nowhere" at Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, parents, educators and...
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  • Posted: Nov 1, 2012
    Can We Please Consider the Evidence? The Ways in Which Assessment Policies and Practices Create Math Anxiety in Young Children.
    Vicki Abeles
    Education Week, July 3, 2012.   Jo Boaler, Professor, Mathematics Education. Stanford University, CA.   Mathematics education is in crisis – a third of all school children end up in remedial math courses and levels of interest are at an all time low (Boaler, 2008). Part of the reason...
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  • Posted: Oct 5, 2012
    Dynamic Mix of Voices in Livermore, California Sparking Change
    Vicki Abeles
    As we engage in complicated work of mending our schools, it’s easy to point fingers, to place blame, to scapegoat somebody for failing our children. It might be the powerful teachers unions. It might be the burned out teachers. It might the entrenched administrators. It might be the uninvolved...
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  • Posted: Sep 21, 2012
    New York Magazine Examines Cheating Culture
    Vicki Abeles
    NY Magazine examines why students cheat. With more students cheating than ever before, what do you think has changed about high school that has led to this disturbing trend? A teacher from Stuyvesant offered "I hope this will be a chance for self-­examination, of what high school should be...
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  • Posted: Jun 1, 2012
    How Has Homework Affected You? Take Part in our Healthy Homework Video Contest!
    Vicki Abeles
    Are you a parent whose children come home from extra-curricular activities only to spend hours tackling a mountain of busywork? Are you a teacher who feels who feels pressured to assign homework because of excessive testing and accountability measures? Are you a student whose homework assignments cu...
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