Im an NYC dad heres what Nikole Hannah-Jones got so wrong about our public schools

Superstar New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones confessed to the world this week how she sacrificed her daughter Najya to her own political project.She sent her only child to low-income, low-performing, predominantly black Brooklyn schools “based on the collective good” — not on Najya’s needs.Almost from the beginning, Hannah-Jones writes in a now-viral essay, her daughter hated the chaos at lunch and the laxity in her classrooms.And she was right to object: When Hannah-Jones finally allowed Najya to attend a screened high school, it turned out she had “huge gaps” in math basics and study skills “that she should have learned in elementary school.”Najya’s own words are heartbreaking: “Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?” she asked her mom.As a New York City public-school parent myself, what strikes me about Hannah-Jones’ narrative is how deeply she seems to connect racial and income demographics with school quality.She writes as if whiter and wealthier schools are necessarily better ones.But that’s simply not the case.My own kids are growing up in Title I, majority-Latino schools where their education has been good to excellent.Their experience shows it’s not demographics that drive educational failure.Their teachers are passionate and committed.Their elementary-school principal moved heaven and earth to reopen for in-person instruction during COVID as early as possible.Their middle-school principal, now retiring, transformed the borough-wide school into a Regents powerhouse. Now, as we navigate high-school applications, our oldest is seeking out precisely the same rigor and challenge that Najya herself longed for.But I can also say that one aspect of Hannah-Jones’ critique is brilliantly correct.The wealthy liberals who spent a decade beating their breasts about their own alleged complicity in “white supremacy” will bear any burden and pay any price to avoid educating their children in t...