Since before he could even talk, I’ve been worrying about where to send my son to school. I know that having a choice to make at all is a mark of status: I am part of a group of parents who have enough money, time, and education to decide what is best for our children. And the fact that I can make a choice means that I can make the wrong one. So whenever I meet an educated Black parent, I inevitably ask for their advice about school. I remember one person answering, “We took the Nikole Hannah-Jones approach.”
I knew exactly what he meant. A decade ago, I read the cover story Nikole wrote for The New York Times Magazine about her and her husband’s struggle to decide where to send their daughter, Najya, to school. They ended up putting her in a “high-poverty, all-black school” because they believed that middle-class families had a responsibility to such neglected institutions. Parents like them could advocate for less fortunate students. And, she wrote, “I also knew that we would be able to make up for Najya anything the school was lacking.” This week, she published a new article, in which she wrestles honestly with her daughter’s feelings of anger and loss about spending years in schools that failed her. In the end, she writes, she agreed to let her daughter go to any high school she wanted—no matter how selective and segregated.
I have always admired Nikole’s writing, and over the years, she has become a confidant and friend. Although many on the internet have accused Nikole of sacrificing her daughter for her ideals, I think she’s courageous. Still, as my son approaches school age, I realize that I could never make the choice she made. I know too well what can go wrong. I’m sending him to a private preschool, and I plan to apply for private kindergarten too.
Growing up in Lexington, Kentucky, I received an abysmal education. I always loved to read and write, yet I was in college before I realized that I’d never learned basic rules of grammar. I spent two years catching up on math. I’m still dealing with the shock of realizing how little I was taught. When my son was learning to talk, I started using the pronunciation feature on Dictionary.com because I didn’t want him to inherit the southern accent that syrups over my words. “Say it like the voice,” I’d tell him. Just last week, I purchased a grammar book from a thrift store. I’m a staff writer for The Atlantic, and I’m writing a memoir, and I still can’t shake off my poor education.
[From the October 2023 issue: Jenisha from Kentucky]
My nieces are growing up in a school district that’s similar to the one I attended and, decades later, are dealing with the same issues. A few years ago, I wrote an essay that mentioned them, and I wanted them to read it. During a visit, I pulled the text up on my phone and showed it to my 14-year-old niece. Reading aloud, she sounded like an elementary schooler. After she stumbled on the word cautions, she asked, “What does that mean?” I wish I could write that I snapped into action and got her help outside the school, but I didn’t. If I’m honest, I worried that it was already too late.
And yet, I know many strong, successful Black women who rose out of difficult backgrounds and eventually got the education they were denied as children. What I realized, when I first learned that I was pregnant with a boy, was that I knew few such Black men. I do, however, know Black men from hard backgrounds who were killed or ended up in prison; I have seen the grief of their Black mothers. I watched my grandmother travel more than 10 hours every other month to visit my uncle in prison. I watched my brother get himself together and go to college, before going back to the streets.
I’m scared for my son. I don’t let him play with toy guns. I see how Black boys are treated differently, even in preschool. Teachers use more aggressive adjectives to describe their behavior, and many people assume that they’re older than they are. I worry about the kinds of crowds he might fall into as he gets older.
Last year, parents at my son’s preschool learned that it had begun admitting students who got government assistance to cover their tuition. The school was suddenly much more diverse. I was glad to see more Black and brown kids, but I confess that I was also concerned; I called the school, asking how many of the new students would be in my son’s class. I joined a chorus of other parents complaining about my son mixing with the kids who, I assumed, were growing up with more problems at home—not because I didn’t know kids like that, but because I had been a kid like that. My mother was the one other parents judged at drop-off. And now I wanted my son as far away from the little Jenishas as possible.
Who am I becoming? I asked myself. I don’t have a good answer. I know that my thinking is distorted by a certain experience of American life. And unlike some other parents, I didn’t move my child to a different school. But my worries remained.
This is not, however, a story about why parents like me are better or worse than parents like Nikole. It’s not about the parents at all. Nikole’s daughter will be okay. She made it into a good high school, and she has a wonderful mom and dad to support and inspire her. No one needs to be angry about Nikole’s choices. What we should be angry about is America’s shameful educational system. What we should be angry about are the schools that are still failing so many other kids. As James Baldwin wrote, “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
I’ve always believed that I have a responsibility, especially as a Black woman who comes from a difficult background, to care about all kids in need. I fear I am betraying that when I choose what is best for my son and my son alone. But America should not force parents to make that kind of choice.