What Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Essay Means for White Families
White mom and NYC Chapter Leader Jenny shares her reflections on the Nikole Hannah Jones NYT article and her perspective on her kid’s school experience.
Dispatch from the First Day of High School
Nine years ago, Integrated Schools’ project manager Anna wrote a post about sending her daughter to kindergarten at their local, global majority, Title I public school — and the internet had a lot of feelings about it. This is the follow-up as that kindergartner went off to high school this week.
Yes, Some Democratic Lawmakers Are Hypocrites. AND: School Vouchers are still Bad Policy
When Democratic lawmakers send their kids to private school while sponsoring legislation against school choice, conservatives call it proof that vouchers should be expanded to everyone. We can agree that progressive leaders’ “do as I say not as I do” behavior sucks, but acknowledging that progressive politicians are hypocrites is not the same as arguing that vouchers work, and the data makes that very clear.
People Like You Do Things Like This
When Courtney Martin was deciding whether to enroll her daughter at a majority-Black public school in Oakland, Integrated Schools founder Courtney Everts Mykytyn told her something simple: “People like you do things like this.” This post is about what that kind of permission actually does, why the feeling that an integrated school is “impossible” is not common sense but the direct product of racism and disinvestment, and how a connected, visible community of families who choose differently has the power to change what feels normal — for the next family watching, and the one after that.
Not That Communion: A Juneteenth Reading List From the Authors Who Actually Built This Work
This Juneteenth, we’re redirecting the cultural conversation — away from a certain book by a certain Vice President, and toward the Black authors and activists whose ideas have actually built this work. Noliwe Rooks, Eve Ewing, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Resmaa Menakem, Heather McGhee, Loretta Ross, and bell hooks — whose Communion came first, and matters more. AND: buying a book is not the same as doing the work. Self-education matters, but it’s a beginning, not an arrival. Read the list. Then let it change what you do.
Beyond Selfishness vs. Selflessness: A More Honest Way to Make School Choice Decisions
What if school choice isn’t really a choice between being a “good parent” and being a “martyr”? IS parent Anna revisits her family’s high school decision and makes the case for a third way: self-interest rooted in the understanding that our well-being is bound up together. Not martyrdom, not optimization — alignment. A practical, personal look at what it actually means to choose integrated public schools, season after season, decision after decision.