Nikole Hannah-Jones, the visionary behind the 1619 Project and a recipient of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, has penned a significant essay titled, "In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?" The piece candidly explores the realities of enrolling her daughter, Najya, in underperforming public schools within New York City.
As a domestic correspondent for a prominent magazine, focusing on racial injustice and civil rights, Hannah-Jones endeavored to align her actions with her progressive principles by sending her child to the designated local public school, despite its known deficiencies. In a 2016 article for the same publication, she observed that her neighbors in the rapidly gentrifying Bedford-Stuyvesant area were choosing alternatives to the neighborhood school. "I didn’t know any of our middle-class neighbors, black or white, who sent their children to one of these schools," Hannah-Jones recounted.
Hannah-Jones, however, did. A decade later, her recent essay reveals that this educational endeavor proved unsuccessful, ultimately at the expense of her daughter’s academic experience.
The essay offers a challenging perspective. Hannah-Jones aspired to embody her values, particularly the conviction that children should attend their neighborhood schools and that school choice is unacceptable. Yet, these ideals faltered when confronted with real-world conditions, a realization Hannah-Jones spent nearly a decade coming to terms with.
Her account details her daughter's difficulties in elementary school, marked by disengaged teachers and unaddressed behavioral issues, followed by a middle school experience characterized by unchecked homework and low academic benchmarks.
A Decade of Progressive Ideals Meets Reality
Hannah-Jones held the belief that her strong will and notable public standing, which she references multiple times in her essay, would enable her and her husband to improve these educational institutions. What her narrative overlooks, however, is the argument that her own preconceptions and flawed ideas might have contributed to these schools' initial predicament.
In 2018, Hannah-Jones delivered a keynote address at the Color of Education event, an annual North Carolina summit dedicated to fostering racial equity and eliminating disparities in education. During her speech, she lamented the trend of White children in North Carolina choosing charter schools over public schools in districts like Wake County, which had long been celebrated for its integration.
This stance on integration, however, appeared to shift when a Black student in the audience sought her advice on navigating predominantly White colleges and universities. Hannah-Jones promptly recommended Howard University, a historically Black college or university (HBCU), suggesting that integration, in that context, was not ideal.
She concluded that address with a declarative statement: "The future of our children and the nation depends on progressives winning the fight to reclaim public schools."
Indeed, progressive ideologies have significantly influenced public schools in New York City. The city's educational landscape can be viewed as a testing ground for policies aligned with Hannah-Jones's preferences. During the COVID-19 pandemic, former progressive Mayor Bill de Blasio eliminated "screens"—competitive criteria such as attendance, grades, and test scores for middle school admissions—a practice continued by his successor, Mayor Eric Adams.
The city's schools are heavily shaped by teachers' unions. Hannah-Jones is known to oppose gifted and talented programs, which have subsequently been drastically reduced, no longer relying on entrance examinations. New York City public schools also adhere to disciplinary practices that align with Hannah-Jones's expressed preferences for students with behavioral challenges. Furthermore, New York’s enduring cap on charter schools means most children have limited alternative options.
The Impact of Policies on Student Achievement
However, Hannah-Jones does not acknowledge how her own perspectives and ideas might fail in practical application. When her daughter did not pass the state algebra test, it was attributed to the unfairness of standardized tests. She conspicuously avoids mentioning teachers' unions as a factor contributing to the retention of ineffective educators and administrators within these schools, where terminations are rare. When school choice is discussed, it is framed as the reason why the middle school, which struggled to educate her highly capable daughter, was failing.
When Hannah-Jones confronted her daughter’s middle school principal about the inadequacies of her daughter’s education, the principal, visibly emotional, responded, "None of this surprises me. This is the reality of a segregated system, and it’s not just segregation by race and class, it’s by ability. This is the reality of school-choice systems."
The implication that school choice creates such realities should be carefully considered: it could be argued that capable children who are eager to learn, and whose families prioritize education, should have the opportunity to opt out of environments where other students may not share the same drive, potentially impeding the learning pace for everyone.
In her essay, Hannah-Jones dedicates considerable attention to demographics and household income. Yet, New York City hosts an extensive network of charter schools, such as Success Academy, which consistently achieve superior results compared to public schools while serving student populations of similar socioeconomic backgrounds.
At one point, Hannah-Jones visited her daughter’s elementary school lunchroom, describing it as chaotic. She wrote, "It was not the children that horrified me — kids of all incomes are rambunctious at lunchtime. It was the callous disregard of the adults. Students respond to the high or low expectations of institutions and the grown-ups who operate them, and it was clear that these children were getting the message."
Yet, similar expectations for behavior and focus are seemingly not applied within the classroom. Hannah-Jones characterized the constant "redirection" of unruly children as "good educational practice." She noted that "Schools like hers tend to rely on a zero-tolerance disciplinary playbook and often simply remove misbehaving students from classrooms, depriving them of precious educational time they cannot afford to miss. But at Unison, teachers constantly worked to refocus students and mitigate conflict. This is good educational practice, but kids like Najya, who were just trying to do their work, saw this treatment as deeply unfair."
Beyond being perceived as unfair, allowing a disruptive child to repeatedly divert a teacher's attention is arguably poor educational practice. It sets a precedent that misbehavior will not face meaningful consequences and forces well-behaved students to compete for essential instructional time. Crucially, ineffective or disengaged teachers often remain in their positions due to the influence of teachers’ unions, which, with the backing of individuals like Hannah-Jones, significantly shape New York City’s school system.
However, these critical observations are rarely acknowledged within the ideological framework often championed by Hannah-Jones. If a school is deemed to be failing, the explanation is typically attributed to systemic racism, rather than to the adoption and perpetuation of ineffective educational strategies by its leadership.
The Personal and Political Divide
The question arises as to why Hannah-Jones chose to publicly express these grievances about New York City public schools, knowing the potential reactions. One can infer that her daughter now attends one of the very few New York City schools that utilize "screens" or selective admissions criteria.
Much like progressive politicians such as Bill de Blasio or soon-to-be Congressman Brad Lander, Hannah-Jones has vocally opposed such selective schools, except when it comes to her own child. This highlights a fundamental tension: when progressive policies encounter practical realities, they often fall short, and those at the apex of the progressive movement frequently manage to secure alternative arrangements for their own children. The broader public, however, often remains subject to the very policies advocated by these figures.
