Yesterday, a friend sent me a link to an article that she said brought her to tears. That made it an immediate must read for me. The article by Nikole Hannah-Jones of 1619 fame is about the decisions she and her husband made about their daughter’s education. As a writer and journalist Jones has explored in depth the inequities in our education system that leave children of color relegated to inferior schools while families of privilege, mostly white, have the resources and knowledge to steer their children into higher quality educational opportunities, leading to the two-tiered system that is deeply entrenched in our society.
Jones and her husband had both the resources and the knowledge to use to their daughter’s benefit, but they chose to disrupt this cycle of pre-ordained success and failure by placing their daughter in their segregated neighborhood school. They hoped that by their presence and that of others like them who would follow their lead, they could transform these low performing schools into places that offer quality education to all children.
Here is the link to the complete article, which I encourage you to read in full, which will help you see why it brought my friend to tears.
Here’s the gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/magazine/ny-public-schools-black-students-segregation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.DFE.rnNf.zrCSfdzmRzgJ&smid=url-share
I will jump to a later part of the piece where the daughter, now 16, realizes, after her failure and the failure of all her friends to gain admission to any of the city’s selective admissions high schools that her parents had the means all along to provide her with a better education but chose not to, out of a desire to act consistent with their theory of change. In effect, she was a chip in their gamble in the game of educational transformation. This article is a form of apology to their child, which she somewhat grudgingly accepts.
Although Hannah-Jones’ article didn’t make me cry, it did make me think deeply about two really big issues: whether the beliefs my wife and I held led us to make decisions that might not have been in the best interests of our children and, on a grander scale, whether such acts ever lead to meaningful change.
Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s recent book, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young and the podcast that preceded it, Mother Country Radicals, addresses the first question head on. His parents, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, were members of the radical Weather Underground whose actions in opposition to the Viet Nam war after Zayd was born risked his entire future, should their efforts have failed and landed them in jail, as was the case with their “adopted” brother Chesa whose mother Cathy Boudin was arrested in an operation that led to her arrest and a long sentence that separated him from her throughout his growing up years. Zayd respects the principles his parents lived by but questions their judgment as parents.
Returning to the educational questions addressed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Rosellen and I never faced decisions as consequential as those she faced or as dramatic as those Ayers and Dohrn were confronted with. Our children grew up in a small town where the schools hovered in a middle range – never as high powered or as creative as some private schools but also never failing to provide a safe and fairly adequate grounding in the basics+.
There was a private school in a nearby town where many privileged families in the region chose to send their kids. It offered small classes and lots of opportunities for creativity – theater, music, crafts, outdoor experiences. As parents, we had a strong commitment to public schooling as the heart of a democratic society, where children of all backgrounds lived and learned together. We wrestled with the question of whether we were depriving our daughters of the best education available by standing with our belief in public schools.
In the end, the stakes weren’t as high as they would have been in an urban setting where the gap between successful and failing schools was much wider than the one we faced in our small New Hampshire town.
When we moved to Houston our children were middle school and high school age and both wound up in magnet or specialty schools of the kind that Hannah-Jones saw, correctly, as perpetuating the system’s inequities. In fact, I myself was teaching in a school for gifted students. It was public education, but it felt like cheating, privileging one group of students with the kind of education that should have been available to all.
That leaves us with the most difficult and troubling question. Are the actions of citizens like Hannah-Jones and her husband ever effective in bringing change or are the problems so deeply systemic that they are immune to individual resistance? This isn’t just a question relevant to education. What of the refusal to pay taxes because of one’s resistance to the way the government uses that money? Does refusal to serve in the military help change the way the war machine operates?
I am going to continue to act as if my individual actions can effect change, despite the fact that it’s hard to find examples where those actions actually lead to significant change. I will continue because inaction feels like capitulation. With my daughters and granddaughter living lives independent of my actions, I am now at least free of the worry that my principles can compromise their well-being. Ever notice how much white hair you can see in demonstrations and actions? Are these elders (including us) free now to follow their beliefs when the consequences are only to themselves? We have been liberated from the consequential decisions Nikole-Hannah had to make. It’s on us take advantage of that freedom.
