What if the way we think about school decisions is built on a false choice?
We’re often told we have two options:
Be a “good” parent and do what’s “best” for your child
or
Be a “selfless” parent and sacrifice for the greater good
I recently attended an organizing training led by Katelyn Jackson, a parent organizer with Parents United for Public Schools. I was moved by her presentation (so moved, that I’ve already written about it once before). But, as my family found ourselves making a choice for high school for our oldest, I think it is worth noting, noting, and noting again, and I am offering a little further breakdown of how my family actually used this framework in making another school choice decision.
A Cultural Script We Rarely Question
My husband, as well as dear friend and IS comrade Meredith, sent me this recent Vox article asking “Is it wrong to send your kid to private school?”. While there were a couple things that rubbed me the wrong way, like that author Sigal Samuel says it’s absurd to ask parents to take other kids futures in to account when making decisions for their own kids, I think she got it mostly right when she said that if it were really objectively true that a private school education was better, then maybe go for it, but the data continuously suggests that once you account for family income, the benefit of private school essentially disappears. And, that the societal costs of abandoning public school are objectively real.
The article leans on the idea of value pluralism—that families have different values, different priorities, and therefore, in values based decisions, there is rarely a single “right” answer, because so often two values contradict one another.
And on one level, that’s true.
Families are navigating real constraints. Real fears. Real hopes for their children and a real concern for their communities and collective good.
But when we zoom out, something else becomes visible:
When thousands of individual families with the privilege of choosing a school, acting only on their own “values,” consistently make choices that lead to:
- more segregation
- more concentrated advantage
- more under-resourced public schools
…it raises a harder question:
At what point do “individual values” become a collective pattern?
A Different Framework: Self-Interest
So back to Katelyn Jackson of Parents United for Public Schools Drawing on the work of Vivian Ihekoronye (of ISAIAH Minnesota), she offered a framing that reminds us: self-interest is not about choosing yourself over others, but understanding that our well-being is bound up together. When families choose integrated public schools, it’s not an act of martyrdom, nor is it a purely individual optimization strategy. It’s a recognition that what is good for our children is inseparable from what is good for the collective.
Our well-being is bound up together. Not separate. Not competing. Connected. When we apply this to school decisions, something shifts. Choosing an integrated public school is no longer about:
- martyrdom
- guilt
- or individual optimization
It becomes about aligning our values. What is good for my child and my community?
A Personal Practice (Not a Perfect Answer)
When I first found Integrated Schools, I remember being a bit of a zealot, talking constantly about our school choice decision when my kid was about to enter our neighborhood, public, global majority elementary school as a kindergartner. I can’t recall just how many times I heard people say things like, I was “sacrificing my kids on the altar of social justice” or “lighting my kids on fire to keep another kid warm” or that “my kids won’t forgive me” when they realize the disadvantage they have by me not sending them to a more competitive, more prestigious, more privileged school when I had the opportunity.
Nearly nine years ago, I wrote a piece for this very blog about our kindergarten school choice. While lots of folks thanked me for writing it, I also received some harsh critique. Some of it was warranted, my tone being a little “savior-y” and the fact that my kid had a $50 backpack in the photo I shared of us walking into school, but there were a fair number of assumptions and trolling and nasty bad-faith comments as well.
And now, as we are closing the chapter on another “school choice” season for me and my oldest kid, I am reflecting on all the time I have spent at different points on that continuum as a parent. At times, I have been INCREDIBLY selfish (I want her to be able to able to take the bus so I don’t have to drive, or I want us to be able to all have the same spring break schedule for travel, or I want her to have access to this many extracurriculars or sports etc). I have also been a complete martyr (well if none of my neighbors have the GUTS to attend our neighborhood school it will just be us, or we have it SO HARD because our district or state is cutting funding to programs or partners that serve my kids school and I am the only one sacrificing over here). Oh, the emotional agony.
So, we’ve been discussing and digesting all of this in my house for the past decade. I remember another anecdotal comment I got about our school choice decision when my kid was young, which was: “Well that’s all fine and good when they are little. But what about HIGH SCHOOL? Surely you cannot use this framework when the stakes are SO MUCH HIGHER.”
In some ways this comment makes me crazy. For one, can we all just slow down, we don’t have to be plotting college trajectories in preschool. But also, it makes two wild assumptions: that the stakes are different (I think every age matters equally in a student’s educational experience); and that places that concentrate privilege don’t have their fair share of peer pressure, bullying, and interpersonal and academic shenanigans.
The high school decision was different in the sense that my child now had a voice, as a young teen, on what they wanted, but those values that we had been practicing and discussing and living into were still part of the conversation. And after touring a few different campuses, looking at other options, we ultimately found ourselves back at our zoned, neighborhood, global majority public high school. A decision we are all comfortable with, but that continues to surprise my privileged aquaintances and neighbors.
What I’ve come to understand is this: Aligning our values is not about a one-time decision. It’s a practice.
Why This Matters for Integrated Schools
At Integrated Schools, our theory of change is rooted in a simple but challenging idea: Individual choices—especially by families with access and privilege—shape public systems. And right now, those choices are patterned in ways that deepen segregation.
The “selfish vs. selfless” framework keeps us stuck because:
- It triggers shame (“If I don’t give them everything, Am I a bad parent?”)
- It invites defensiveness (“Don’t judge me, I have to do what’s best for my kid”)
- It shuts down curiosity (“It is too stressful to take any risks at all, therefore I will take none”)
And this is where the idea Katelyn presented of self-interest comes to the rescue. Self-interest asks us to instead consider: What kind of world is my child growing up into—and how are my choices shaping it? Because the truth is: a thriving, diverse, well-resourced public school system is in our children’s self-interest.
A Practical Framework for Decision-Making
If you’re navigating school choices, here’s one way to use this lens:
1. Zoom Out from the Individual
Instead of asking:
“What’s the absolute best option for my child right now?”
Try asking:
“What patterns am I participating in?”
We saw, and discussed as a family, how there was a way to “optimize” and game the system and find more advantage at wealthier, “Whiter” schools that offered more AP classes or honors programs. But we could all see and (more importantly) feel how doing that would participate in a pattern that made us all feel yucky.
2. Name Your Constraints Honestly
Safety, special needs, logistics, work schedules—these are real.
Self-interest isn’t about ignoring constraints. It’s about being honest about them without hiding behind them.
While my kid didn’t have any educational constraints, it was real that they wanted a high school environment that offered challenges and opportunities. We also saw how we were making assumptions about where they would be challenged and where they would get “enough” opportunities.
3. Consider the Collective Impact
If many families like yours made the same choice, what would happen?
Would it:
- strengthen public schools?
- or further concentrate advantage and disadvantage?
This one felt important to consider. Once we sat with that, a few of the options we were considering came off the table, immediately. If all the families in my neighborhood made the choice to send kids to our neighborhood school, or even other district schools that did not concentrate Whiteness or privilege, there would be an overall positive collective impact (right now, almost all our district high schools are under-enrolled).
4. Look for Alignment, Not Perfection
There is no perfect choice.
But there are choices that move us closer to:
- integration
- shared investment
- and collective care
We are not in denial about the reputation of the school we ultimately chose or that it is a unicorn of an educational experience, but we can settle in the fact that it feels aligned with our values. We decided to be guided by our own experience visiting the school and talking to students and caregivers, rather than by a reputation based on the assumptions of White and privileged parents with no lived experience of the school.
5. Stay in Relationship
Self-interest isn’t a one-time decision. It’s a practice of:
- showing up
- staying engaged
- and working to make your school better for all kids
I think this one is important because this also says, hey, this isn’t a suicide pact here. We don’t have to plant our flag on this hill forever and force something if it doesn’t feel like it is working. But, we can remain in honest communication with each other and the school to find ways to make any given situation work as well as possible for our child and other children.
From “It Depends” to “What Are We Building?”
The Vox article isn’t wrong that these decisions are complex. But “it depends” can’t be where the conversation ends. Because complexity doesn’t absolve us from examining patterns – and the ways in which our choices contribute to them.
Self-interest invites a different question:
Not just “What’s right for my child?” But “What are we building—together?”
From Shame to Practice
When we’re stuck in shame, we either:
- justify our decisions at all costs
- or shut down completely
But when we root ourselves in shared self-interest, something else becomes possible:
- Curiosity
- Accountability
- Growth
Not perfect decisions, but intentional ones.
An Invitation
If you’re wrestling with school decisions, you’re not alone. We believe you don’t have to choose between being a “good parent” and being part of something bigger, because those things were never actually in conflict. In the long run, what is good for our children is inseparable from what is good for all children.
Feeling more curious after reading this? Want to talk more one on one? Contact us through our Caregiver Connection Program!
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