Latest / Color Commentary / Ep 48 | The A That Wasn't
Transcript
- Charles Cole: Welcome to the Color Commentary, a podcast where the story shaping our world are told in black and white first, and then we dig into their deeper meanings in full color. Each week, I'll be bringing you the news like this first. We'll start with what I like to call the black and white section, a clear, straight shooting rundown of the facts and the tradition of greats like Ed Bradley, Walter Cronkite, and the classic voices of journalism. Then we'll shift into the color commentary section where I add my own personal opinions and insights. Sometimes it'll just be me. Sometimes we'll have guests. ⁓ now listen, man. I I am a scholar. I am a hip hop junkie. I I I truly am. ⁓ I'm a movie and culture nerd and an avid book reader. So in these shows, you're gonna get a glimpse of all of that. You're gonna get all of me, right? And I want you to bring your full self. So let's get into it. So I am I am a little fired up and amped up this this this this episode. ⁓ you may not hear him in the background, but My producer Tommy has also noticed and I'm a little ⁓ wired this episode. And it's because quite possibly the biggest education story of this of this year has just come out, and it's from Nicole Hannah Jones. And she is basically asking the question and trying to save all these black children. Did I portray my own black child? And it's just been very interesting. And ⁓ And I'll do a rundown of it and everything and we'll get there. I I did my due diligence, like I have my notes and things. ⁓ I have clips for you. ⁓ but this this one hits home for me in a lot of different ways. A week prior, ⁓ I w I too was featured in the New York Post and California Post article. ⁓ at front page. I did not know it was gonna make the front page. When I did the interview, I didn't know when the interview was coming out. ⁓ but a week prior. There was somewhat of an expose done on grade inflation in California. And I've led the charge just making people aware, right? I'm not ever attacking the public system or tr the traditional public system, charter system, private system. I don't love or care about systems. I'm not a I'm not a charter zealot. I'm not a traditional education zealot. I'm I'm none of that. I don't, wherever our kids are, I feel like we need to be there. What I am, what I do believe in. What I am a zealot of is that people should have agency. Parents have agency. ⁓ it is something that I've pushed for a long time and had to fight through ⁓ when a lot of people didn't respect the term agency. And but this is why. And this article is why, and her reflections are why. And I want to just start by saying before I even get into the true black and white section where I break this down. ⁓ I may disagree with certain things that Miss Nicole Hannah Jones may say, but I will never disrespect her. ⁓ I think I'm proud of her success, even though I disagree with a lot of the takes in certain ways. ⁓ I feel like her heart is often in the right place. That of the liberation and freedom of black people, which I too believe in. I just think we believe in different ways of getting there. ⁓ I don't. I don't like ⁓ you know, being labeled in certain ways or or or called a charter school zealot or something like that or or whatever, you know, some of these things are. ⁓ I I didn't I d I I may not appreciate those things, but I also understand, as my producer pointed out, she's been a whipping board and a lightning rod for conservatives and Republicans in this country for over a decade, you know. Like I I I don't so I get it. I understand it. ⁓ but I do defend and protect her right. To to do what she does. And especially in a time where journalism is on its last legs, I I applaud ⁓ the transparency in this article and the somewhat mayacopa that may have taken place. I think she twists some things in some ways to still come out on top. I think she's gonna be fine. The other thing is I want her husband and her daughter also respected. ⁓ there's an innocent girl. ⁓ that is the center of both of these stories ⁓ as her daughter and you know people can have their takes on that it's not I don't really have you know that's not my I can make a case either way about using your child as your muse ⁓ their lived experience ⁓ but it does make it real in those ways. ⁓ but that those issues that'll play out between her and their family. That's their family. ⁓ they're a loving family they're gonna do what they're gonna do. So I say that to say this is gonna be a conversation about ideas, a conversation about realities, ⁓ but it's also gonna be done respectfully. It's also gonna be done in a way where black people can disagree without being disagreeable, and you can call it whatever the hell you want, ⁓ but I'm I'm gonna respect that woman, her child, and her husband. And if you watch this show ⁓ and you wanna partake and you wanna take in some of these these these arguments and make a case. ⁓ I I I urge you to also respect them. ⁓ I I I didn't I'm not doing this episode ⁓ to bring any type of disrespect or discourse ⁓ to a beautiful black family ⁓ that have reached the height of you know upper middle class success ⁓ and has access in ways that people dream about. Okay. I know I've never done a disclaimer like that, but it this is this is something that does mean a lot to me. So With with no further ado, ⁓ I think we need to go ahead and get into the black and white section, Tommy. So let me do our magic thing as we do it. And black and white. Where's Toto? Damn it. Okay. So here are the facts in black and white. On September 13th, the New York Post. ⁓ and California Post ran a story about California. And the headline was that high school grade point averages are climbing while college math skills are falling. Full disclosure, before I go any further, I am quoted in that piece, me, Dr. Charles Cole III. ⁓ and which started out around questions around my research and and data around grade inflation, ⁓ also had points of my own ⁓ academic experience ⁓ in California. So full disclosure. You know, and when they came to me, they came to me as this education advocate who came up through California high schools. ⁓ and what I told them is that grade inflation has been building for decades and decades, and it has only gotten worse. ⁓ and it continues to get worse, in my opinion, every year. So here's what the reporting laid out: the number of students applying to University of California with a 4.0 GPA or higher. has roughly doubled in 10 years, from about 53,000 for the class entering in 2015 to more than 103,000 for the class of 2025. There is a sharp jump during the the the pandemic years as well. And I think that's really important for you all to have in your mental bank. COVID is still part of this story in a lot of ways and it exacerbated a lot of things. But COVID is not the cause of these things. It just Heightened ⁓ what data had been showing us for a while. It crystallized it in a way. So over that same stretch of time, state testing showed that reading and math comprehension were steadily going down. Okay. So you got GPAs, grades, access to honors and AP courses going up, whereas the testing ⁓ and and and the show of if you know these things ⁓ and these scores were going down. Okay. The universities are the ones that were sounding the alarm. A report out of UC San Diego found a 30-fold jump between 2020 and 2025 in incoming freshmen whose math tested below a high school level. And about 70% of those students were below a middle school level. More than 1,400 University of California faculty allied them in math and the sciences. Signed an open letter asking the system to bring back a testing requirement because professors are having to reteach middle school math and college freshmen. Do you understand? Let me say that one more time. Because professors are having to reteach middle school math to college freshmen. The UC system is now reviewing both this testing policy and its A through G course requirements with the recommendation expected by 2027. And a separate analysis this spring found that only about a third of California 11th graders are meeting the state math standard, even as more students ⁓ than ever are walking across the graduation stage. Now that's the wide shot. Now let's get to the close up. All right. Eight days later, on September twentieth, I think it was September twentieth, ⁓ in New York Times they published ⁓ a a pretty long essay ⁓ from Journalist Nicole Hannah Jones. The title in question, ⁓ asking whether in fighting for every black child she portrayed her own. It's a follow-up to a piece she wrote for the same organization back in 2016 ⁓ called Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City. This is the one that put her kindergarten age daughter, ⁓ Nadia. I think it's Nadia, it's a beautiful name, by the way. ⁓ and if I said it wrong, my apologies. But this one put her kinder age her kindergarten age daughter Naja on the cover and started a national conversation. And this follow-up also has our daughter on the cover now, I think, you know, now now firmly in high school. The short version of the 2016 story is this: Nicole Hannah Jones and her husband, both products of integrated schools, they made a very deliberate choice. Rather than use their money and their status to get their daughter into one of the city's stronger, wealthier schools. They enrolled her in a segregated, high poverty, mostly black school in Brooklyn. Her argument was that families with resources have an obligation to the collective, and that when affluent parents flee, they are part of why these schools stay separate and unequal. The 2026 essay is the 10-year reckoning. And it's a hard read. Well, from Hannah Jones, it is, right? From her perspective. Nicole Hannah Jones walks through how. Year after year, her daughter earned good grades without actually being taught. Teachers who did not check the work, a stretch where no homework was assigned at all, an algebra for everyone program dropped on kids who never got the fundamentals. Her daughter pulled A's in algebra and then failed the state exam. And when they finally had her tested privately, she had gaps going all the way back to long division and fractions. Eventually, Nicole Hannah Jones let her daughter pick her own high school, and her daughter chose a selective, mostly white screen school, the exact kind of school her mother has spent a career criticizing. She struggled badly there before catching up with a lot of support. The mother's conclusion, in her own words, is regret. She writes that she told her daughter she was sorry, that she had not done the best for her, and her daughter's answer is the part that stays with you. Well it stayed with me. I think it stayed with most people actually. It's 'cause it's the thing I keep seeing quoted. She told her mother she wished she had thought about her as much as she thought about other people's children because she never really got the education she wanted. So look at what we have. We got these two articles, and again, I'm small potatoes. ⁓ honored to be asked to to to offer comment. I don't read the New York Post or the California Post. We have different political beliefs, but if you ask me a question, I'm gonna be very honest in it. and I'm starting to think that it was not coincidental that that article in the post came out a week prior to this article coming out. That's just me. one is like a statewide spreadsheet around what these numbers are and kind of going in the data and and and and how kids are being failed and not being rigorous is is a large culprit of it. And the other one is a portrait of ⁓ a mom with means, ⁓ who's w conscious, ⁓ and her 16-year-old daughter. And The decisions that were made and the pain that came from that and how that fits into this national dialogue, one that's been happening for over a decade now. ⁓ but one of the strongest critics happened to have somewhat of a mayor copa. They're describing the same thing from opposite ends. ⁓ the distance between the grade on the paper and the learning that is actually happening for a child, and we're gonna dive into it. Because I do think that there are dire consequences, and I feel a kinship to this little girl ⁓ in my own story. So before I get into that, that's the news, that's the black and white session. Now let's talk about it. You're listening to color commentary with Dr. Cole. want to start this next colored commentary section with a clip. And this people is Nicole Hannah Jones. ⁓ she's a very bright woman. ⁓ she has a lot of strong thoughts and opinions. ⁓ and I think in addition to her being a celebrated New York Times journalist and author, she became a symbolic figure in this country around segregation or desegregation as it pertains to education. ⁓ she's a ⁓ MacArthur genius award winner. ⁓ she has a very good income. ⁓ I'm not counting her pockets. This is just relevant to the story. Get your get your bread, man. ⁓ and her and her husband, you know, had to Have some conversations about where what type of school they wanted to send their daughter to. And if you read the 2016 article, ⁓ you'll see that they did not agree. ⁓ he was not down with this. but she talked him down, she got him, she won the argument, and they made a political decision about where they sent their child. And I think a lot of people will say that that's noble. Live, live your raps, is what the kids would say, right? Like. You talk this good game. Now let's see it. You do it with your own child. I, for one, ⁓ would not have suggested that she do that. I I I don't think you have to show these people anything. That's your child. You do what's best for them and what you think is best. It's okay to be wrong, but I think where the reason why there's so much energy behind it is because Miss Nicole Hannah Jones gave off a lot of energy herself. ⁓ when she was having some of these discussions. Here's the tenor ⁓ of Miss Nicole Hannah Jones, so we can kind of, you know, set the stage ⁓ as I as I talk through this. A New York Times reporter in a high poverty school fucking changes the school, right? Like there's certain things that just are not gonna happen in that school. I can go to that school and say there's a problem and it gets fixed immediately. Ladies and gentlemen, this is ⁓ what we would call ⁓ a thesis. Ma maybe even a hypothesis. ⁓ it was spoken with the confidence of fact, but it was not fact. And it was not fact in the case of her own daughter. And when I read the comments, some of the comments, because there's a lot of comments, there's and the comments vary. They're go from being very supportive of her and calling her a hero and how smart she is. And even if you still don't agree with her, you you're missing the bigger picture, you can't comprehend, or whatever, that actually somebody did say that, you know. All the way up to ⁓ you you you sacrificed your daughter for political statement. One that your kid has to face, and one where you nor her father had to face from basically from what I read, right? And I could be wrong and forgive me if I am, but both ⁓ both Miss Hannah Jones and her husband went to Pretty good schools that perform. Listen, I got these notes. I did all this research. I'm gonna throw curveball. I I I'm just gonna do what I do. I'm just I'm just gonna speak from the heart on this because I've caught shit from maybe not Nicole herself, you know. I know she's had it out with some of my friends. but I've had it I've had it out with people who are fans of of Nicole Hannah Jones. I would say even acolytes, maybe, of Nicole Hannah Jones. That have told me and that have told other parents when they leave that school or choose a better school or choose a charter school or choose to send their kid to a private school or or choose a better traditional public school on the other side of town, those people have said that those parents are stealing from a system and they're part of the problem and that they are the problem and that their money and their influence will actually make that school a great school. There was a call for parents that looked like me, that many of them did not have a lot of money, but they had a sliver of opportunity in front of them, and they were made to feel guilty about making the best decision for their child that worked for them. There wasn't just this notion that money changes things because when you look into the the the financials of the school that we're talking about from this story, it's actually not a poor school at all. I think it actually quoted that the teachers at that school on average make six figures. I could be wrong. I think it showed a very high per pupil ⁓ spending number ⁓ in that school. I could be wrong. I have known throughout my entire career. That money alone is not what fixes dulls. Many of the schools that I have been in and that I have worked in and partnered with, and many of them that have a lot of respect for, is called a teacher lottery, even inside the good schools. Meaning, if you get teacher A, you're good. This teacher is a savant in what they do. They have mastered this content and they know and they have pedagogy and ways in which they're gonna get that information from them into your child. And then right next to that same teacher is a teacher who does not have a mastery over the content that they're teaching. Is a teacher who will say to a young person, I got mine, I get paid whether you learn or not. Which every one of my friends, most all the black people that I know intimately in this space have heard some version of before. I have watched parents cry, break down in tears at school board meetings. Because they are faced with making these types of decisions. And some uber liberal, usually white. And sometimes their black uber liberal friend that hangs out with them. Will tell that poor parent, that poor black parent, who now has this opportunity, that they can't take their kid out of that school, that that community and that school needs them. While not allowing those kids to be sitting next to their kids at the top of the hill at their school. My bluster isn't for Nicole Hannah Jones, per se. My bluster is for why and I'm remembering all the shit I had to take, all the shit I had to shovel that was heaped on me for trying to have the audacity to teach black children, their parents, their communities, their churches, everybody about agency and why we need it. Because it's not Nicole Hannah Jones's fault. That somebody read this and listened to her and went part and parcel off of everything she said and tried to replicate this, but you don't have the safety net that Nicole Hannah Jones has. She can fix and move her child out of that school the way that she did, and she has enough resources to chat to catch that child up, get that child tutoring, get that child all type of opportunities, and that kid is gonna be okay. Probably gonna go off to change the world. And I'm happy for that. You should do all of that. Again, I have no disdain for this woman, her husband, or her family. My passion is that mom that loves Nicole Hannah-Jones, that read this, this should have been but one bit of information in a sea of information that she takes in and then makes the best decision for her and her child. See, I run an organization in a climate where it's very difficult to raise funds. And the notion of trying and having the audacity to teach black students, black parents, black educators, black principals, community leaders, all that stuff about agency and why it's important, it don't resonate with the funders all the time. The same way that when I had to argue about A through G requirements in California and why they were different from California high school graduation requirements. Where we had black children graduating in higher numbers, but less of them were qualified to go to the largest public university system in the country. One that promises you a space if you have a 3.0. My take isn't about how wrong Nicole Hannah Jones was. And listen, she is a wordsmith. She will be studied long after she passes away, long after I'm in the dirt. She will be responsible for so many people becoming journalists that want to live the type of life that she has and have the type of impact on society that she has. I have her book here too. I bought it, I bought multiple copies. And I'll buy multiple copies of the next book because I am proud of her and her success. I'm just pushing back on the level of hubris. And that maybe, just maybe, we should actually listen to poorer parents. Maybe, just maybe we should listen to students that are coming out of those systems in those schools. I went through the remedial classes. I paid for that shit. I worked 30 hours at Bayfair Mall when I was in undergrad. As a freshman, I had to sign up for my 16 units. It was a quarter system. And then I had to take two more classes on top of that. But you don't get there, there's no credits for that. Remedial language arts and re remedial math. And I had to take them for three quarters each together. Technically I'm taking twenty-four units. And working thirty hours at Bayfair Mall Shoe Plus, selling shoes, and having a work study job at the library. Where I would do my homework in in between doing research for professors pulling microfiche and microfilm. That's what it took for me to get a degree from Cal State Hayward, now East Bay, before moving on to grad school at San Francisco State. See, the notion is for these people, these racist people that like to weaponize DEI and this bullshit. Let's just be very honest. All these terms they they try to take and repurpose it, we gotta stop letting them do it. Like woke, DEI, affirmative action, all these is dog whistles for nigga. And the way they use it. I can't call him a nigga, but I can say you DEI hire. And the notion behind that is that we don't want to learn. No, no, no. I'm just as cocky Nicole Hannah Jones, if not more. I wanted to be the actual best. I wanted to be the actual smartest. So when I found out that the shit was up to wasn't up to snuff, when I had already taken algebra and geometry in middle school, and then my high school wanted me to repeat it, even though I had already passed it glowingly and I was ahead of the class, I advocated for myself. I wanted to get to the higher levels of the math. I loved math. I had a great teacher in middle school named Mr. Brown, who was a savant addict. He didn't just teach you the Pythagorean theorem. He taught how it was utilized in the real world and also where it came from. It made me proud of math. He connected math to Kimmit and connected Kimmet to me. He taught me math as a universal language. He said, if y'all afraid of numbers, don't worry about numbers. I'm about to make you bilingual or trilingual for you kids that are already bilingual. You're about to learn the language of the universe. So this notion of these racist people that want to use this as an opportunity or use my article as an opportunity. To to to be veiled racist, I I'm not going. I can disagree with Nicole Hannah Jones and you. You know why? Because this isn't binary. We're talking about people's lives. Hopefully, I'm not losing any points in my excitement. And Tommy, you can leave this part in. Interrupt me if I leave a hanging argument. It's okay. ⁓ But let me tell you why this stuff matters to me. I lost so many friends from middle school and high school. Not lost that they moved away. Lost to fucking death. Because what happens to a black boy who can't fucking read? What happens to a black boy who is a star football player who can fight really well and is respected by his friends and peers for being a crack athlete, for being tough? Girls liked him because he's handsome. And then we get in the world history class and we have to read out loud. And this motherfucker gotta read like this with his finger. Skipping over words. Words like daughter, mispronouncing it, doctor. What do you think happens? Taking all this confidence of this young man, and then you just embarrassed him in front of the very people that he gained this respect from. I saw this. This happened to a dear friend of mine, and you know what ended up happening? I stopped fucking sien them in class. And then I stopped seeing him in school. Then he becomes one of the biggest drug dealers in our side of town. Still one of my best friends, one of my favorite people. Up until the day he was fucking murdered. Or what happens in middle school when you got a boy who's bigger, had his growth spurt earlier, looks like he could be a s a junior or a senior varsity lineman. And his mama keep him fly. Had the new pennies on, had the new Jays. Respected, loved his school community. The most fun we would ever have was in PE class hooping and talking shit. Kicking it after school, trading lunches. Every now and then cutting to go catch a movie at the historic Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, California. Then he gets into English class. Mr. So and so, stand up, take it from chapter three. This different uber cocky confident kid with the world in front of him with the fucking confidence of a young Deion Sanders with the jerry curl. With the fire of an NWA ice cube. Somebody with the chops to be a community leader. Motherfucker in the eighth grade and can't read, can't get through a full sentence without stuttering through it. He started coming to class less. Still catch the bus together, but shit, you know. Sometimes he was doing something different throughout the day, and then we go catch the bus back back to the north. It's a group of us. Then he get a l small little bomb of, you know. In Atlanta, they may say a bomb a perp, you know, a little dime bag here and there. Start doing some hand to hand stuff. Start, you know, the clothes get even nicer. You know what I mean? Pops ain't around, so ain't a lot of questions being asked. Moms is doing what she can do, but moms is from the same environment that we from. We all get it. We all understand. And this 14-year-old kid that looks like an 18-year-old kid that got a nice chain on. Got some bread in his pocket. Motherfucker get shot, man. His mama gotta hold his baby. I'm sorry, his mama gotta hold her baby. And here's the thing. That's a soldier's death from where I come from. Motherfuckers be everybody I'm the the the people I'm talking about became legends in death. So now what happens? The next, the little ten year old, eleven year old that's watching this shit. I'ma go that route. And I'ma live it the fuck up. If I'ma die at twenty one or fourteen or whatever. At least I know I'm gonna be celebrated. This is the real life consequence of that bullshit. That people was getting fed. It's when you got so much money and so much access and so much book smarts and you can talk circles around everybody, but you ain't lived near nobody. And you brainwash people who trying to do the best that they can because they trust you. And they trying to live like you, but they ain't got the reas the the fucking resources that you got. They sacrificed their kids to this shit. And they bury their kids to this shit. And in order for us to cope and to get through the fucking day with it and not be crazy with it. We turn dead black boys and fucking girls children. into martyrs and we celebrate that shit and we call the kid that goes to college wife. Parents, I don't personally care what school you choose for your kid. If you choose the neighborhood school because you love it and there's a history and a legacy there, then by all means, send your kid there and be fucking involved and engaged because you're gonna have to be. You're gonna have to check homework. I don't give a fuck if you know the homework or not. You know what you can do and what I train y'all to be able to do and I train parents people to do. Ask questions. What should my kid know at the end of this? What does mastery look like? What does this A actually mean? What does this B mean? How are you grading? Or the parent that chooses a charter school that they like. You know what you're gonna have to do? Be involved in that fucking school. Ask the same questions. When they piss you off, be your ass up there. Have a relationship with your kids' teachers. Have a relationship with your kids' principals. Build up friends inside of that school building outside. Build a community around your kids and fight like hell for your kids. And I'm not mad at the parents with a little bit of bread or a voucher that choose a private school. You know what you're gonna have to do? Instill that blackness into your child. Be the cultural rod for that kid. Check that homework. Ask the same question. Your role does not fucking change. We are not in the age of dropping children off at school. And just expecting these products to fucking come out. Students. I'm wanting I have the org that talks directly to students. Again, I I use sometimes I'll earn my own money and donate it to my own org. Not donated, but like I have to invest in order to get these messages out. Because this ain't the shit that's popular right now with funders. Maybe it will be. Now that Nicole Hannah Jones has said this, maybe I gotta talk to. The right wing people to get the funding to teach our people. Or whatever. I don't fucking know. I'm a product of this fucking experiment. I went to eleven elementary schools cause my parents was fucking crackheads, cause. So we moved a lot, but that means I got to see a lot of different schools. I will always show respect for that little tiny elementary school in Paducah, Kentucky that made us master reading, made us fucking master it. It saved my life. Let me tell you why and how. Some of you notice, some of you don't. I get to Lafayette in West Oakland. I got an accent, a Chicago, then twangier Kentucky accent. I'm moving and going through all this shit. When I initially moved here, both my mom and dad were in and out of jail. When we finally, my grandmother finally passed, who was like my mother. When she fucking passed away, my mother ends up going back to jail. She tells my dad, go off to California where my aunt lives. It's a better life there. She'll meet us there. We get on a greyhound. Me, my father, my infant sister. And my toddler brother. We stay with my aunt. I go to school in Hayward for a little bit. We end up ending up in a shelter. I end up we live in Oakland. This is where we settle in. Then I'm at Hawthorne in East Oakland. It's a year-round school in Oakland. Drug deal goes bad. Niggas bust in the crib. Lay my whole family down. Jump my dad. Lay us down. My aunt and my pastor uncle, her husband, all you hear is pop pop, the pastor's out there shooting. I'm just telling you what I come from. We leave this place, move in with our other aunt. But somehow I end up at Lafayette Elementary, where I she lives on Pippin and Deep East Oakland. I'm going to school in West Oakland, Lafayette. So now I'm on the bus for about an hour. But this is the school that we chose. It's all good. And in this class, my accent is so thick and I have somewhat of a stutter. I'm not a stuttering kid. But around these new people and this new environment, I don't know, and I might not be here for very long. I ain't been in no school for very long. So I'm state of myself. They think I'm special needs. I'm slated to go into a fucking special needs class. And you know what saved me? That Paducah classroom. This day happened to be Read Out Loud Day. And I stood up, my shoulders were back. very confident and I read the fuck out that page. I was by far the best reader in that fifth grade class. And by the end of the week, I was in the gate program. If you don't understand how flippant it is that a child With no parents that were involved in this school shit at all, my dad's trying to get fucking clean. My mother just got out here. They trying to figure it out. And we homeless. And we bouncing between Auntie's house to this shelter to this to that. Then you got this kid, they write those parents off. Well, we're gonna put him in special ed. Motherfucker reads out loud. Now he is now tracked, which I would continue to be tracked in these positive classrooms, the higher classes, throughout the rest of high school. That's what the gate program does. If you get in there early and you pay and your people know to always mention you a gate kid, a gifted and talented education kid. To now I'm tracked in the best classes in that the school has to offer. ⁓ and by the way, those classes ain't up to fucking snuff either. Them classes ain't mastery either. And I'm not bitching about this stuff. I chose this life. I'm proud of this life. I've only had jobs in nonprofit. I started my career as a social worker in nonprofit because I dealt with fucking social workers. Then I moved over to youth development because I needed a lot of youth development as a young person and the shit wasn't there. So I did it my way. Then I went to education and training educators. I didn't do Teach for America. I wasn't a court member. I was on staff. Shout out to Tracy. Brother saw something in me. We had a friendship. I haven't talked to him in years. It's always love. But there was something about me, and he wanted me to be a part of TFA's staff. I said, cool. I met a lot of privileged people there that were afraid of their privilege. That hated the organization that was putting them. If you are a part of TFA, you are always at the most. Two degrees away from whoever the education secretary is in this country. Did you know that? Democrat or Republican unit i it doesn't matter. You are two, maybe let me be conservative and say three degrees away. That's how your fucking social network changes from that organization. And I was so jealous, not jealous, it's not the right word. But while these kids that were in this program were shitting on it and the new access that they had, I was like, damn. It's crazy what education can open up. These people are choosing to be teachers or not because they want to. Whereas I chose all of my careers out of this sense of duty and having to be here and give back. In some ways, I love my TFA family. I'm not, you know, I won't be at the 35th. I don't go to any of the stuff. I'm not, I'm not. I'm not part of that crew. I was staff. But you know what? My teachers did fucking good. They did great because they were grounded in what we're talking about right now. They were grounded in understanding that this is their vocation and that what you do, you will change every student's life that comes into contact with you. It's not a question of if you will change their life, it's fucking how. Cause you either gonna change it for the better or for the worse. And the vast majority of the teachers that I had changed it for the fucking worse. Not all of them. And those are the stories you get. You get the story of Mr. Brown. You get the story of Coach Bodepo. You get the story of Coach Campbell. But for each of those, it's 20 other fucking teachers that I won't name they names. Because either they didn't give a fuck about what they was doing or they were just bad at what they was doing. And whether it was just bad or they didn't give a fuck, the outcome was the same. Destroyed minds. So when I read this article from this very impressive woman And I hear her husband pleading with her, basically saying, You and I didn't go through that shit. Why are we trying to make our kid go through it? To where this little girl had to say, Mama, you failed me. And the repercussions ain't that big. You know why? And they got the means for therapy. They can go talk it out. They can go on vacation to the Hamptons. She can call up her friends. She can get an internship at MSNBC. She can get into Harvard or Howard or do both if she wants. And that's beautiful. But the reason you need agency. Is because you might not have those safety nets to fucking catch you. Fucking child shouldn't lose ten friends, man. And you shouldn't be able to trace all those losses to most of those kids being functioning illiterate. And instead of making this education shit better, Instead of doing what we know needs to happen. Instead of teaching these kids phonics and how to read. Or teaching them math and math application in life. We find a new buzzword. We find some new shit that comes from very privileged people that can experiment with their own child and yours. But as soon as they kid starts to fail, you hear the swell of the speakers in the background with fucking Kendrick Lamar's, we gonna be our right plan because they got a safety net. You need agency. You need the skills to be able to listen to Nicole Hannah Jones, listen to Dr. Cole, listen to this person, listen to this person, and look at data, and then say, fuck all these people, including me, and then make the right decision for your child. You need to be able to discern with whether you are jealous of your kids' ability to live in a different society or have a different relationship with their school. And be able to check yourself as to is the reason that I'm not going to the school if I'm not going to the school and checking on this stuff because I'm still traumatized about what happened to me at that school. None of these schools are silver bullets, but there is a clear delineation between the good ones and the bad ones. There's also smoke for this article, and maybe you just chose the wrong black school. There are tons of black schools, predominantly black schools, that are killing it. I lead another podcast series called Leader to Leader. In partnership with Charles School Growth Fund. I love producing it because we only talk to schools that are killing it. Do those schools, are they perfect? Do they not have problems? Absolutely not. They of course they got problems. Parents are choosing those schools every single day. And many of those parents had to wade through fucking liberal people and the races of uber conservative fucking people ⁓ to get to these places. But they've made the decision. They had to have courage to put their kid in a good fucking school. Ain't that a bitch? Y'all gonna stop equating blackness to struggle. Y'all gonna stop equating blackness to poor. Y'all gonna stop equating blackness to the void of fucking love. So I don't blame Nicole Hannah Jones. She did what she did based off of her lived experience and what she believed in. Did she have some jokes and some heat for people along the way, including people like me? Absolutely. It is what it is. I ain't no hoe. Like I can you can you somebody not agreeing with you, you can take that. It's fine. Just told you what I grew up in. She did what she felt was best for her kid. I I bet she pull out all the fucking stops now. This ain't about her. She gonna be okay. Her baby gonna be okay and her husband gonna be okay. Keep writing, sister. Keep doing your thing. I hope you get another fucking MacArthur d Grant Genius Award. I wish you much success. I just also wish for the people that decide to listen to you are able to discern was coming from a very privileged pie in the sky, thoughtful, but sometimes very wrong. Perspective. And I want you to be able to take in information from your perspective and your lived experience coupled with copious amounts of data. Data that you both agree with and disagree with. Truths that you both like and dislike. And I hope you make the best decision for you, your children, and your community. Don't blindly trust me either. Check all this shit. Read everything I write with skepticism. I don't want you to be my fan. I don't want to be your overlord. I want you to get what you need. Okay. A little excited this episode. Go read all the articles. ⁓ like I said, she's a great writer. engage with the arguments. You can go read the one that I'm featured in as well. ⁓ and you know, to all the new people that are here from from Ed Post, welcome. ⁓ I'm very happy for this partnership between Color Commentary, ABH and Ed Post and and my good friend. So yeah, man. With that being said, let me go ahead and close us out. ⁓ I hope you had fun this episode. And as always, seriously, thank you for listening to Color Commentary. We'd love to hear from you. So drop us an email at colorcommentarypod at gmail.com. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show. Leave us a five-star rating, share it on social media, and join us every Thursday for more Color Commentary with Dr. Cole. Peace.