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This award-winning film, from director Lillian LaSalle, explores the seemingly impossible journey of South Bronx Latino educator, Pedro Santana, a former "special ed" student, whose mantra is - every kid can learn despite their circumstances.

In the US less than 50% of students who start college ever finish, making America’s college completion rates among the worst in the world. Now there are more than 35 million Americans who started college but never finished, leaving them saddled with debt, and behind their peers in earning power. Featuring interviews with LeBron James, Howard Schultz, and our nation's leading voices in education, this penetrating and personal new film investigates America’s college dropout crisis through the lives of five diverse students as they fight for a second chance at opportunity and highlights the innovators reimagining higher education for the 21st century.

By welcoming various intrepid thoughts, we welcome learning.

Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric. Katie Couric sets out to explore the rapidly evolving complexities of gender identity.

America to Me focuses on a year at Chicago’s Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRFHS), widely considered to be a safe, well-integrated, academically strong school. In Episode 1, we meet some of its students of color and their families, who have sacrificed to live in this popular district. Their stories begin to reveal the racial cracks and realities of the permanence of racism.

As we meet more students at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRFHS), we start to see where the students of color are able to live as their authentic selves, and where they’re just surviving. Extracurricular activities like Spoken Word Club offer safe, validating spaces for students like Charles and Chanti to explore their racial identities. Yet students like Ke’Shawn and Terrence are left searching.

By Episode 3, the racial cracks at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRFHS) are becoming more apparent, as are the complexities of Oak Park’s racialized relationships. Terrence’s relationship with his mother, Jada’s and Charles’s interactions with their physics teacher, and teacher Jessica Stovall’s experiences with her family and work all illustrate the diversity of racial relationships and their power to impact identity, self-image, and success.

Episode 4 offers a vivid example of the impact of agency. When an individual feels a sense of agency - like Ke’Shawn in his theater class - they feel like they have control over their choices and actions, and the ability to advocate for themselves. Agency impacts our self-image, our sense of belonging and contribution, and our ability to succeed. So when Ke’Shawn’s agency is taken away by school’s security, it impacts much more than just his ability to participate.

In Episode 5, we meet a new group of white students at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRFHS), whose experiences contrast with those of the school’s students of color. One key area of difference involves academic expectations - what is expected of the white students academically as opposed to the students of color, and the influence that those high or low expectations have on the students’ placement (Honors Track, College Prep, etc.), teacher attention, student motivation, and academic success.

By spring semester in Episode 6, the students of color at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRFHS) encounter a fresh set of opportunities and obstacles along their paths to developing their racial identities. Kendale achieves a big goal, while Tiara’s dreams are dashed. Charles’s voice is validated with a team victory, but Jada’s attempt to express her voice through film is challenged for being too provocative.

In Episode 7, the students at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRFHS) experience a series of thrilling victories (Kendale’s overtime win and Charles’s rise in spoken word) and crushing blows (Terrence’s graduation news and Ke’Shawn’s home situation). As they fight to achieve the “American dream,” we begin to see the white cultural origins of that dream and how it impacts everyone’s lives at OPRFHS.

Identities, both authentic and assumed, play a strong role in Episode 8, as we see the students, teachers, and families of Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRFHS) navigating multiple identities and finding the need to code switch in order to fit in and achieve recognition at the school.

By Episode 9, Chanti and Caroline experience fatigue as women of color, as does teacher Jessica Stovall as she continues to engage the administration in piloting an equity program that benefits all faculty and students. Both students of color like Tiara and white students like Brendan continue to spiral from emotional and physical fatigue as they navigate their experience at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRFHS).

In the final episode of America to Me, we witness the resilience of the students and teachers of Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRFHS) in their quest to find agency, racial identity validation, and community. Their stories demonstrate that individual steps towards equity are important, but it takes everyone working together to create long-lasting, systemic change. Transformation is a collective action that requires intentional commitment and involvement to make the necessary systemic changes. No one can opt out.

A look at the stereotype of the "gay voice" examines its connotations in modern society.