Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Black education equity at issue after journalist's 'impossible' school choice for her daughter

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Black education equity at issue after journalist's 'impossible' school choice for her daughter · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you read it, you have thoughts about it.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about New York Times reporter Nicole Hannah-Jones' article
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: on the decision to send her daughter to majority-minority higher
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: poverty schools in Brooklyn, despite having means to send her
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: daughter to higher-performing schools. Hannah-Jones describes trying to put her
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: principles into practice after years of covering and critiquing the impacts.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: of America's segregated schools, she believed her upper middle class
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: family could use their resources to help improve her community school,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: not just for her daughter, but for every child. In
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the end, it wasn't that simple. Her daughter, in the end,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: asked to go to a competitive majority white high school.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: And when she did so, she discovered significant gaps in
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: her education and she took her mom to task about it.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: We've talked about like over and over our like our
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: lives are the products of people who didn't just say,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: we think segregation is wrong.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: We think injustice is wrong.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Like they were willing to put themselves, their families, their
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: children on the line for that.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: So you put me on the line to help with school,
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: but it didn't work.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: I put, yeah, I put you on the line in
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: hopes of making a change.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: It's not like I never had any doubts about my choice.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I did.
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  Speaker 3: And the only reason I'm OK with my choice now
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: is I'm like, you're fine.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I felt this was important. I tried to do the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: right thing.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: And the assignment desk is still here with me. And
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: what you just heard right there is from This American Life.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: you get to listen to Nicole Hannah-Jones and her daughter
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: have a kind of at times intense and very vulnerable dialogue. Natasha,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I want to start with you because you were a teacher,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: you're a mom, but you also were involved in Teach
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: for America. You understand the education system. And I think
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: like anyone who ever was a young black kid in
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: school also understands that our parents are faced with kind
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: of impossible choices. How did you feel after you read
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: this book?
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: It was deeply personal. I'm glad that we're talking about
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: it because too often it feels like we're begging to
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: get people to even talk about public education to think
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: that anything is possible.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: It hit home. It was really personal for me. We
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: literally just went through this.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: My son just started kindergarten and our entire decision was
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: based around what type of education can we provide for
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: him that is the best academically, but that also does
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: not leave him feeling.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Alone and unseen.
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: Hmm.
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: Thankfully, gratefully, we found that option, but too many parents
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: don't have that option. So that's the number one thing.
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: I think what comes forward for me is that I
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: do not want people to associate majority black school with
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: low performing. So that's the first thing. There is a
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: middle ground. There are schools where you have. Black students
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: who are high performing. There's class diversity. So it's a
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: very nuanced conversation. And I just want to make sure
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: as we talk about it, that that is not the assumption.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Also, there is a middle ground.
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: I went to a school that was racially diverse, black, white, even.
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: But in the honors classes, in the AP classes, I
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: tended to be one of few black students. So it's
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: not just about what school do you send your child to,
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: what type. It's also about what happens in the school.
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: How are the children seen? What is the belief system
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  Speaker 5: around what those children are able to do? And I
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: think that those are the things that many black parents
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: have to wrestle with. And that can feel like an
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: impossible choice.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Amara, I want you to take a listen to another
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: exchange that Nicole had with her daughter where she's asking her,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: do you feel like your life was held back?
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like your life is being held back?
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: I don't think that, but I don't want to be,
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: I don't want to, I didn't want to feel like
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: I didn't know anything because I was set back in
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: other schools. I didn't want to feel like I was dumb.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: In ninth grade, it did feel like I was dumb.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: It did feel like I didn't know anything. It was like,
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, you're a dumb black girl in a
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: white school. That's what it made me feel. Why should
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: I have to suffer with that? Why couldn't you just
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: benefit kids in another way? There was other options.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: What's it like for you to hear that?
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's wrenching.
• 4:19
  Speaker 6: And that's part of the thing that comes across to
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  Speaker 6: me in this piece and, you know, raises questions for
• 4:26
  Speaker 6: me about what was included and what wasn't. I mean,
• 4:28
  Speaker 6: there's certain things that it seems to me are deeply
• 4:31
  Speaker 6: private and intimate between Nicole Hannah-Jones and her daughter that
• 4:36
  Speaker 6: may or may not be the things that are front
• 4:40
  Speaker 6: and center or should be front and center in public conversation,
• 4:42
  Speaker 6: to be perfectly honest. And I think that one of
• 4:45
  Speaker 6: the things that we have to take away from this
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  Speaker 6: piece that I think I would have lifted up more
• 4:53
  Speaker 6: is the way in which you cannot have individual solutions
• 4:57
  Speaker 6: to systemic problems. I mean, that's fundamentally the issue here, right?
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: Believing that I as an individual can change this. We
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: need collective responses to systemic problems. And her piece 10
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: years ago, which for me is one of the finest
• 5:10
  Speaker 6: pieces that I've ever read. It is spectacular. You know,
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: highlighted that. using your personal experience to illuminate the systemic failure,
• 5:20
  Speaker 6: this seemed the opposite. And I don't know. I think
• 5:24
  Speaker 6: that that's what I take away from this piece. But
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  Speaker 6: it is searing, deeply personal, deeply painful. And right now
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: in this moment, you know, I just have a lot
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: of questions about its positioning and why now. But I
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  Speaker 6: think the fundamental piece here is that you cannot have
• 5:44
  Speaker 6: individual solutions to systemic problems. No one is a superhero.
• 5:47
  Speaker 6: No one has a cape. That's an impossible undertaking. And
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: it's one of the reasons why I think we are
• 5:53
  Speaker 6: where we are in the country right now is because
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  Speaker 6: people believe that individually I can surpass or overcome things
• 6:00
  Speaker 6: that are actually deeply systemic. We need a fundamental shift
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  Speaker 6: in how we approach.
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  Speaker 1: I understand that.
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  Speaker 2: I think, Eamon, I'm curious for your thoughts on this too,
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  Speaker 2: because while I don't disagree with anything that you said,
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  Speaker 2: I wonder if there's something to be said for trying
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: your best to live your values in a society that
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: does try to make you believe that collective action isn't possible,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: that there is no grand solution. The lawmakers are never
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: going to solve this problem for you. They're not taking
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: segregation being as bad as it was in the 60s seriously.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: So maybe the only thing you can do to feel
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: like you did something like a little drop in a
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: bucket is to try yourself.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that's very commendable. And I think there's
• 6:37
  Speaker 7: a few different things here at play. There's the situation
• 6:40
  Speaker 7: of Nicole Hannah-Jones as a mother making a decision on
• 6:44
  Speaker 7: behalf of her child. There's the issue of your worldview
• 6:49
  Speaker 7: about education. And I think this is a very important
• 6:51
  Speaker 7: conversation because I think in this particular moment, yes, it
• 6:56
  Speaker 7: can feel very painful for her daughter to have experienced this.
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: But I also believe that there is a life lesson
• 7:02
  Speaker 7: here that can be important for her daughter in learning
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  Speaker 7: as she sets out in life. It's not about, you know,
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  Speaker 7: and I have views about education may not be the
• 7:11
  Speaker 7: most popular, but I think education in the classroom is
• 7:14
  Speaker 7: just one part of education. There's an education beyond the
• 7:18
  Speaker 7: classroom that is sometimes even more important for people. And
• 7:21
  Speaker 7: I think trying to get our society to shift a
• 7:23
  Speaker 7: little bit from.
• 7:24
  Speaker 8: Just test results and class results and what you read
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  Speaker 8: and what you don't read It's important. Please don't get
• 7:29
  Speaker 8: me wrong. But I think that sometimes through adversity, sometimes
• 7:33
  Speaker 8: through these challenges, you get a quality of life lesson
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  Speaker 8: that you don't get in a classroom. I'm not saying
• 7:38
  Speaker 8: that's what's going to happen here. I'm just saying I
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  Speaker 8: understand the decision and I understand perhaps maybe trying to
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  Speaker 8: change that system because as parents, one of the things
• 7:45
  Speaker 8: that you want to try to do is walk the
• 7:48
  Speaker 8: talk that you're saying to your kids. I think for
• 7:50
  Speaker 8: a lot of us, we certainly I don't say a
• 7:52
  Speaker 8: lot of us. I would struggle with the idea of
• 7:54
  Speaker 8: putting my child in a private school when I'm trying
• 7:58
  Speaker 8: to advocate for, as Amar was saying, collective responsibility and
• 8:01
  Speaker 8: collective action. I happen to live in a part of
• 8:03
  Speaker 8: Brooklyn where public schools are excellent. So that decision was
• 8:05
  Speaker 8: much easier for me to make. But I understand that decision.
• 8:08
  Speaker 8: But it was something that we discussed and we opted
• 8:10
  Speaker 8: to stay in the public school system and not just
• 8:12
  Speaker 8: immediately run to a private school system because we do
• 8:14
  Speaker 8: prioritize things that include diversity, inclusion. socioeconomic diversity, racial diversity,
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  Speaker 8: linguistic diversity. We wanted all of those things part of
• 8:23
  Speaker 8: the education that our children are going to receive as
• 8:25
  Speaker 8: opposed to just thinking, what is the actual education in
• 8:29
  Speaker 8: the classroom? It's still important, but it's not the only thing.
• 8:33
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