Black parents face an impossible dilemma when choosing schools for their children, torn between academic rigor and cultural inclusivity, according to an essay by Saida Grundy. The piece, published in response to a recent revelation by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, argues that this conundrum puts some families in an untenable position.
The Hannah-Jones family's regrets
Grundy's essay references Hannah-Jones's disclosure in the New York Times Magazine about her and her husband's 2016 decision to enroll their then-six-year-old daughter in a predominantly Black, low-income, underperforming school in New York City. The couple hoped that sending their high-aptitude upper-middle-class kindergartener to an under-resourced school would help balance the scale of racial inequality. A decade later, by the family's own estimation, the gamble had not paid off.
Hannah-Jones's daughter suffered from over-burdened staff and fundamental gaps in her K-8 curriculum, setting her behind considerably. By high school, she struggled to pass comprehensive state exams. The family was sobered by the reality that individual choices by one privileged Black family don't fix systemic issues.
Cultural curriculum considerations
Beyond the goal of helping fix New York City's failed public school desegregation efforts, Hannah-Jones and her husband also made their decision based on what they thought their daughter would be taught culturally. They feared she wouldn't get exposure to Black life and other Black children if sent to majority-white schools. This consideration weighs on many Black parents: from where will their children's cultural curriculum of Blackness, Black life, Black history, and Black community be sourced?
Grundy recounts her own upbringing in Kentucky, where her mother found every African dance class, science fair, children's theater, summer camp, music lesson, Saturday math school, pediatrician, dentist, and teen leadership club that centered Black children and was led by other Black parents, educators, coaches, and volunteers. Recognizing a void, her mother founded her own summer camp and ran it for over a decade.
Systemic deficits and parental burden
Even well-resourced Black parents approach majority-white schools with skepticism about academic advantages alongside cultural harms. The national discourse on the racial achievement gap often harps on a narrative that Black parents are not doing enough, but Grundy argues that majority-white schools are doing far too little. Research shows that Black students assigned to Black teachers in grades K-3 have improved reading and math scores, are 9% more likely to graduate high school, and 13% more likely to attend college.
In the Hannah-Jones's school, the resource deficit burdening its majority Black educators was obvious, but the cultural deficit Black students experience in even the most resourced majority-white schools is also a costly setback. Thousands of Black parents empathized with the essay, which echoes W.E.B. Du Bois's caution from over 90 years ago that there is no magic in either mixed or segregated schools. The fair and equal education promised to Black children still lingers out of reach for millions, and parents should be acknowledged, not blamed, for providing the cultural education their children deserve.
