Networks Team Up For Celebrity-Packed Back-To-School Special

SANTA MONICA (CBSLA.com) — A live, star-studded back-to-school special will air Friday night on all four major television networks from Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport.

Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Mahershala Ali, Bill Hader, Christian Slater, Common, Jennifer Hudson, and Sheryl Crow will be among those who will be part of "EIF Presents: XQ Super School Live," a broadcast organizers hope will help the public rethink the future of American high schools.

The show is executive produced by actress Viola Davis and her husband, actor Julius Tennon. Multi-platform digital components will allow viewers to participate online.

"We all know America's high schools need to be transformed to prepare students for jobs that don't yet exist and a future that we can never see with perfect clarity," Laurene Powell Jobs, board chair of the XQ Institute, said in a statement. "Since the launch of XQ two years ago, we have taken an empirical, crowd-sourced approach to gathering great ideas and educational solutions from communities, large and small, across the country. It has been enormously inspiring to see students, parents, educators, artists, entrepreneurs and community leaders work together to create breakthrough schools that are both innovative and rigorous."

Jobs is the widow of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

"EIF Presents: XQ Super School Live" will air on CBS live at 8 p.m. Eastern Time (tape-delayed on the West Coast).

More information can be found at https://xqsuperschool.org/live/.

(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)