S7E14 – Unpacking the Racial Hierarchy in School Choices

S7E14 - Unpacking the Racial Hierarchy in School Choices

Andrew: Welcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast. I'm Andrew, a White dad from Denver.

Val: And I'm Val, a Black mom from North Carolina.

Andrew: This is Unpacking the Racial Hierarchy in School Choices,

joined by a very exciting guest today.

Val: We have Dr. Chantal Hailey, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas, who's really digging into her sociology background and how race and racism interact with schooling.

Andrew: Yeah. And I, I'm particularly excited about this ‘cause I feel like we have, a number of times on the podcast, mentioned this Chase Bellingham / Matthew Hunt research that really looked at how White parents think about race when it comes to choosing schools. And, they did this research where they showed White parents a bunch of different schools and, and, changed the racial makeup of them held other things steady and basically found that, um, I think they write, “The proportion of Black students in a hypothetical school has a consistent and significant inverse association with the likelihood of White parents enrolling their children in that school.”

Val: So you already know I'm in my feelings in this whole episode.

Andrew: Yes. So, the research has shown for a while that the Blacker a school gets the less likely White parents want to send their kids there. But I think what's fascinating about Dr. Hailey is that she's, sort of, really exploding that Black/White binary, because, you know, we think, often think about school desegregation, school integration in terms of 1954 in Brown v Board. And at that point we had Black schools and we had White schools. And that is not the country that we live in today.

Val: Right, exactly. And so, I think we have to be very intentional about including all of these voices and perspectives in this conversation because integrating schools impacts all of us.

Andrew: Right. So in a country that has a significant Latinx population, that has a growing AAPI population, we really have to think beyond just Black and White folks. And, and really so much of the research, as is the case across the board, is really focused on White parents. White folks are centered in the research, and I really appreciate that Dr. Hailey tries to push that.

Val: Yeah. And I'm thinking specifically about public schools, which is, you know, what we advocate for. And the way that the public school population is majority students of color. Right? So how do we understand more about how they are experiencing these spaces, especially across different racial categories?

Andrew: Yeah, for sure. The only thing to say before we jump into the conversation and just, you know, this is, this is research about racial categories of people, and we, kind of, often speak in broad strokes about “White parents do this,” and “Latinx parents do this,” and “AAPI parents do this,” and “Black parents do this.” And, and obviously it is worth mentioning that that is not all parents. Not, not to say that every single parent feels that way.

Val: But I think it's important for us to understand that there, these are trends. And the research shows this stuff for a reason. And so it's really important for us to interrogate our own feelings and decisions about how this is operating, and have conversations with our closest neighbors and friends about decisions they're making as well.

Andrew: Yeah, for sure. Alright, let's take a listen to Dr. Hailey.

Val: I'm excited.

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Dr. Chantal Hailey: Hi, I'm Dr. Chantal Hailey. I'm an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Specifically my work focuses on the role of race and racism and how it shapes young people's lives.

Andrew: How'd you find yourself doing that work? Why do you care about that?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Yeah. So my foray into this work really comes out of my own lived experiences. In particular, when I really began to think about the role of race in educational space and place and how all these things really came together really, happened in my transition from middle school to high school.

So up through middle school, I lived in a majority Black suburban community. And I was in the advanced classes, doing the work, having a great time. And it got to about eighth grade, and my mom said, you're not being challenged in your current school.

And she said, I feel like you need a little bit more to advance your understanding and to really challenge you in your thinking, and in your frameworks for life.

And, at that moment I transitioned from, again, this majority Black suburban public school to a private all-girls school. Literally the place that the Bushes went to school when they lived in Dallas. Right? So this is your, like, majority White elite school. It had a boarding component with it.

And what I discovered in that moment as I transitioned, is that I was traversing what I call Dallas's “race-space-place divide” every single day. So I was going from this majority White, very privileged, very elite, school to my activities in Oak Cliff, which is Dallas's majority Black and Latino neighborhood, to home, which at this point we moved from this Black suburb into, uh, a majority White, kind of rural, area.

So every day I was moving from literally home in this neighborhood and community where we were one of probably 10 Black families that lived in the whole city, to this majority White, private school, to Oak Cliff.

And as I was moving across, literally every day up and down the highway, what I discovered, in my relationships with friends, is that all of us were having very different experiences at schools. All of us were having very different experiences and the types of resources that we had available.

And as a teenager, these were all my friends. I knew that there was nothing inherent about us with why we had differential access to resources. And so that really made me grapple with why cities look the way that they look. Why educational resources are dispersed differently across space. And so, that really is where I landed in trying to understand both why people choose the kinds of schools that they choose, why there are differential access to resources across these spaces, and what that means in terms of people's long-term outcomes and long-term experiences.

Val: So is this where, like, we can pause for a hug time? Because that's a lot! That's a lot for a young person to have to navigate. We have a similar mother in that, in ninth grade my mom saw I had straight As and she was like, “Absolutely not. You're not, you're not getting challenged,” but, and speaking to your research too, as a ninth grader, I was able to negotiate staying in my all-Black affirmative space.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: I will definitely say that experience made me a sociologist. And I also should add a third component to my educational trajectory was this majority Black, public middle school to a majority White, very elite, private high school. And then I went to Howard, which is an HBCU, for college.

Right? So that also is my foray with really trying to understand, especially how young people navigate, being in affirmative spaces. As you can see in my work, it definitely shows up in how I grappled with these questions.

Val: Yeah, thank you for putting yourself in, into that work. That really helps.

Andrew: Can you talk a little bit about what that choice for high school was like for your parents, recognizing that the tension of, kind of, no good options. “Am I choosing academics or am I choosing the more affirming space?” Did your parents grapple with that?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Yeah, I think I want to say, first one thing, don't think it's an either/or when we’re thinking about, racially affirming spaces and academically challenging spaces. And it doesn't have to be an either/or, but I think, when we have to zero into the racial educational structure of an individual's local area, that's when it sometimes becomes an either/or, but it doesn't have to be, right?

And I think that's really important with how I think about my, my work and how I think about the school system in general. That doesn't have to be so, and I think it has a lot to do with who governmental structures and school districts respond to, in terms of their requests for resources and opportunities. That has a lot to do with the very intentional segregation of spaces that exist in the United States. It has a lot to do with the legacy and contemporary racism in this, right?

I think often we look at schools and we just say, “This is just how it is.” But I think, especially now, how I'm conceptualizing my work is really about race and racism, both in the structure of what the school systems look like and in how people are thinking about how they navigate those, that structure.

Andrew: Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: But to your actual question, which was about my parents and how that choice happened. So my parents are from New Jersey. And, I have a picture that's on my Twitter, and it's a picture of my mom's mother, my grandmother, sitting at a table with another Black parent and the White superintendent of their local school district.

And the re- what they were sitting at the table discussing, was the integration of that local school district in New Jersey. So I think what's important, even for understanding my educational trajectory, is that my mom was a part of the first group to integrate her school in New Jersey in late 1960s, early 1970s. Right?

So she grew up in a, very much so, a racially integrated school system, by court order, but right at that foray of her actually being one of the first group of people to experience her local district as a desegregated district.

And so, that also factored into her choice, as she was looking at my educational trajectory, and seeing that I had only been in Black school spaces. She wanted me to experience interacting with other kinds of people. And in Dallas's again, racial spacial divide, those kinds of spaces very rarely exist.

And so, she was very intentional with saying, you had this experience, you're very much so empowered in your Blackness. I had multiple spaces even outside of school that really empowered me as a Black woman. And so she wanted me to be able to experience something different and grapple with how to interact with other people, and what that meant for both my own identity, what it meant for how I think about the world. And just given the structure of the school system, what it meant in terms of resources that could push me forward and challenge me in my thinking and in my understandings.

Andrew: Hmm. Let's dive into your most recent research. This article is how I came across you. One of our leadership team members read it and was so moved by it and shared it around. And, uh,Racial Preferences for Schools: Evidence From an Experiment with White, Black, Latinx, and Asian Parents and Students.

And I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about, about that research, why you engaged in it and, what it taught you.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Yeah. So this research really focuses on New York City. Um, I went to grad school in New York City and New York City is known as the most racially diverse city in the United States, right? You go there because you have access to all these different racial groups and cultures.

What I discovered when I got to New York City and was a grad student already interested in school choice, was that in New York City there is no such thing as a neighborhood high school. In New York City instead, everyone engages in, in high school choice. So that means when you get to eighth grade, they say, “Okay, now everything's open to you.”

Andrew: “You can go to any school in the district. You list which ones you want to go to and then, and then we'll assign you there.”

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly. The other thing I found out is that New York City actually has one of the most segregated school districts in the United States. And I really wanted to understand why those two things coexisted, right?

So often, when policymakers, look at school segregation, they tie it to the racial segregation of the city. Right?

Andrew: “You can't fix school segregation until you fix housing segregation.”

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Right. So then the logic goes, “If you're assigned to your neighborhood school and we have racial segregation, then we're going to have school segregation.”

Well, in New York City, that tie between racial segregation and neighborhood segregation is broken. And educational advocates say, “Okay, well, if you break the tie between racial segregation and schools, then school should de-segregate,” right?

Andrew: Provided school choice to liberate people from their segregated school, so they will naturally choose more integrated schools and it will just happen by itself. Right.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly. But in New York City, you don't see that, right? You're seeing school choice in a place where you can also get on the subway and have public transportation and access a lot of different kinds of schools in the city.But yet, you see the schools are super segregated. And so I really wanted to understand why.

There's a lot of qualitative work that tries to understand the kinds of choices that White parents make. Like, a ton of literature about White families moving into cities and how they're navigating school choice. And New York City offered an opportunity to move beyond just looking at White families, but to really understand a more complex question of racial preferences. In again, the most di- one of the most diverse cities in the United States in a context in which everyone is engaging in school choice.

Andrew: So, kind of the perfect spot to see how racial preferences are impacting everyone. Because you have a wide range of racial and ethnic groups in New York City, and you have everyone participating in school choice, so you kind of avoid the ways the data might be skewed if school choice was something only wealthy or otherwise privileged folks do.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly. And so, through NYU, I had access to every family’s applications to the high schools. And so, using that data I was able to look at the association between a number of different school characteristics and how families ranked their schools on their applications. And what I found was that once we account for the other things that people say matter when they're making school choices, things like safety or graduation rates, or school poverty levels, or metal detector presence, right?

All these components that we know people say matters to them in their school choices, but also the qualitative research has said that people sometimes use as a way to signal their racial preferences. Right? So they say, “I don't want to go to an unsafe school,” signal “Actually, what I actually mean is I don't want to go to a Black school, but I know ‘unsafe’ is the better thing to say.”

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: So, we account for all of those things that might be associated with race. What I found is that race was still central in family school rankings. But in my line of research, we call it, like, observational studies. But in observational studies, the big critique is, “You're not accounting for something,”

Andrew: How do you know it's really racism? Maybe you just didn't realize that, right. They wanted the school with the flower bed instead of the, whatever.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Yes. Yes, exactly. So the way in which we do that is using experimental methods, right? To understand, if I'm controllingthe hypothetical schools that I'm giving to families. In that control of the schools, I intentionally make it so that the racial demographics of the schools don't at all associate with any of the other school characteristics that I'm giving you.

Like, let's just create this idealized district where none of those things associate and see, hypothetically, you give families hypothetical school choices, and you say, what do you prefer in these ideal, these ideal schools where none of these things are actually associated.

Andrew: That was the method, right? You, you found a whole bunch of families who were engaging in school choice anyway. And you said, here's some hypothetical schools. They weren't real schools, but they matched closely enough.

Like, there was some, like, reasonableness to the schools that you created, but they were fictitious enough that you could then control the variables to say what is actually driving the choices that parents are making.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly. Exactly. And I was really intentional. So I, I talked to, uh, eighth grade parents and students who are actually choosing their high schools in this experiment. And I did exactly what you, what you said. I, the demographics and the characteristics that I gave them, I made it realistic, actually realistic to match up to New York City schools.

Right? So I gave them hypothetical majority White, majority Latinx, majority Black, and then mixed schools. And by “mixed” I mean it matches the demographics of the New York City high school population. And then made sure that they didn't associate with anything else about the school. And I said, okay, now, what do you think about this school?

Right? Like your eighth grade counselors giving you these random schools, how do you feel about them? Just give us your opinion.

Andrew: One, one to seven, more or less likely-

Dr. Chantal Hailey: One to seven.

Andrew: -to choose this school.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly. And what I found is that families were definitely expressing race-based preferences for schools. So race affected their willingness to go to schools.

In particular, I found differences across racial groups and between parents and students.

Andrew: Can I just ask, ask something because I feel like I've, I've mentioned the Billingham-Hunt work a number of times on the podcast. Which was sort of similar design at least was like, here's some fictitious schools, you hold everything else the same, and we find that unsurprisingly White parents want White schools.

But what I love about your work is you, sort of, you have taken it both beyond just White and Black. But then also looking at parents versus students, because we know that at certainly the high school level students have, between a little bit and maybe all of the say in what schools they go to.

Can you talk a little bit about why both of those additions to the, to the literature that's out there were important?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Yeah! Let's think about the Black/White binary. I think the reason why a lot of our research in particular focuses on White parents, uh, preferences or beliefs about Black students is because, historically, that's what the school system looked like, right? We can think back to the 1960s and historically the schools were majority White or Black.

Right? But that's not what our schools look like anymore. We have a large, exponentially growing population of Latinx students, exponentially growing population of Asian students. And that especially is so in our major cities. And so, I think that's why it was super important to move beyond Black and White, because that's not what schools often look like now.

And I think it's also important to not center Whiteness in our research and to really grapple with the ways in which everyone is having an impact on what schools look like.

So I think that's, that was one of the reasons why I did that. The other reason was the reality of that transition from middle school to high school that you don't see an elementary school, you don't see pretty much gone into middle school, but high school is the first moment where students are either completely autonomous in making their school choices or it's the parent and student negotiating that together.

Andrew: And this is where the experience of elementary school and middle school is informing the student in, in the same way that the parents' experience of their own schooling experience is informing them. And, and I think your research shows that those, those don't actually always line up exactly

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly. I think the other thing that's really important in this moment is that adolescents are growing up at a time in which, they're really grappling and trying to understand the active role of race in the United States. The very active role of race-

Andrew: Mmm.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: -in their own experiences. Right? I collected the data, in 2018. And so let’s think about that moment, right? Like, that's a moment where, where students are grappling with the Black Lives Matter movement. They're grappling with police brutality and police violence. They're also grappling with, what does it mean to live in a country in which your racial group is being berrated by the president, via negative stereotypes around Latinx people and negative stereotypes around immigration, right?

And so, I think that's important to think about, that we're also capturing young people at a moment where they're grappling with, what, what does it mean to be a White boy in the world? What does it mean to be a Black girl in the world? What does it mean to be a Latino boy in the world? And what does it mean in terms of the experiences that I want to have, or don't want to have in a school space?

Andrew: Not only did you find that race was playing a role in these decisions, which we knew definitely was happening for White parents, but actually is, it seems to be happening across the board. But it's also not happening in the same way. It's not like everyone has decided that the White schools are the best schools, we see that the preferences that parents have are not homogenous

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Yeah. So we can focus first just on the parents. Again, this is why we have to de-center Whiteness in research, because I think our narrative comes from the narrative of what, in my study, White parents preferences are.

So in my study, White parents prefer the majority White school first, then the mixed school, and then a huge jump in lower preferences for the Latinx, and then the Black school.

For Latinx parents, they have very similar preferences for the Latinx, the White and the mixed school. But they really prefer to avoid the Black school.

Um, Asian parents, we’re seeing that they, similar preferences for the White and mixed school, but they really want to avoid the Latinx and Black schools.

Black parents aren't expressing these racial preferences, right? So there's no effect of race on their school preferences.

We see across the board that White, Asian, and Latinx parents really want to avoid the majority Black school, but we see for White parents, they have this very stark racial hierarchy in the kinds of schools that they want to attend.

Val: Dr. Hailey, I need you to help me process that, though. Like, help me understand! Is there, is there something that I can understand?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Yeah! Um, I think again, go- Yeaaaah! It's tough!

Val: It is tough.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: I think I'm going back to the, like, racism shapes how people make school choices.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: So, we know in the United States there's a racial hierarchy. Let's say within stereotypes, right? There’s a racial hierarchy and stereotypes around students that essentially say that White students are smart, that they're really ambitious, they're peaceful. Asian students are, are great students. They're engaged. They're the model minority within schools. You have, uh, within this, like, academic hierarchy in stereotypes, right? You have Latinx students who are sometimes considered really hard workers, sometimes considered really violent.

And then you have really strong anti-Black stereotypes, uh, around Black students, right? In particular, around them being violent and disorderly and around their schools being places where you cannot advance, within social mobility, right?

It's like, those stereotypes exist in society. And those stereotypes also exist around the idea of schools.

Andrew: Your work also shows that they clearly exist maybe most strongly in White parents, but they also exist in other parents as well. They also exist in Latinx parents, they-

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Right,

Andrew: -also exist in Asian parents.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Right. And I think what, what my work is really showing again, just focusing on parents is the strong role of anti-Black racism in shaping family school choices. Right. And I think that by just focusing on White parents, you don't get that these other racial groups are also avoiding Black school spaces.

In some of my other work, I show that this avoidance of the Black school is really driven, in part, by race-based perceptions of safety at those schools. Right?

I give families safety information about these schools. I say this Black school has the same safety rating as these other schools. But what I find again, using this experimental work, is that the Latinx, White, and Asian families still think that the Black school is less safe. And that in particular, if those families have expressed biases towards Black people. If they think there are stereotypes around Black people being more violent. And if they don't go to middle schools with other Black families, they're more likely to perceive the Black school as less safe than these other schools. And that then drives their school choices.

Val: Dr. Hailey, it's just always, I think even more difficult to hear about anti-Blackness from other communities of color. Like, that is always extra difficult to process. And yeah, I think I was just saddened by that, you know, while I was reading, because it would be wonderful for Black people just to have their dignity and humanity affirmed, period. The end of that. Right? But we are constantly up against these anti-Black stereotypes. Um, and it just, it's unfortunate. It's… I don't really have the right words. I don't know what White and or privileged parents or Latinx and Asian parents need to hear from Black people to get them to change their minds.

Val: I don't, I don't know.

Andrew: Yeah - that's tough.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Yeah.

Andrew: Um, we sort of covered what parents want. And I'm wondering if you can tell us what students want and how that’s maybe similar or different from what their parents want.

Val: The students give me hope. So y'all parents need to get it together!

Andrew: That’s right.

Val: Because the students give me hope.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: So, I think it might be easiest to take it each racial group at a time. The differences between parents and students are slightly different for each racial group. Right?

So let's start with Asian, the Asian families. The Asian parents and students, racial preferences for schools look very similar. So they both are expressing desires to attend the majority White and mixed schools more than the majority Black and Latinx schools. Very similar patterns.

For White respondents and Latinx respondents, what I find is that parents’ preferences for schools are more anti-Black than their students. So I'm seeing that White parents want to avoid the Black school at two times the rate than their students. Also I find, again, that Latinx parents want to avoid the Black school at much higher thresholds than the Latinx students.

The way that I categorize White students and Latinx students, racial preferences is to say that they have an in-group racial preference. They prefer the school with their racial group the highest, but they don't really express any other preferences for the other schools.

How I interpreted it is that they want to go to school with kids that are like them. And part of that might be built into racial stereotypes around other groups. Part of that may be built into what their friendship groups already look like. And so they're thinking I want to go to school with my friends or are like my friends that I currently have.

Andrew: So that, just so I'm clear that the hierarchy that we see among White parents, of, sort of, White schools are the best, then mixed schools, and then significantly lower Latinx schools, and at the bottom or Black schools. That, that for White students, you really have White schools are the best, and then everything else is kind of equal. That the, kind of, specific anti-Blackness isn't showing up in the same way.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly, and the same thing for Latinx students where it's, “I want to go to the Latinx school. All the other schools. Okay, sure. Like, I, I would equally want to go to these other schools,” but you don't see the same, the same form of anti-Blackness in Latinx students’ and White students’ racial preferences for schools.

Andrew: Hmm. Let's talk about Black kids.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: So, Black families, this is why it's important to think about this in an intersectional way. We find a very different pattern. What I find, specifically for Black parents is that they're not expressing any racial preferences, but for the Black students, they prefer to attend the Black school, and then they really want to avoid the majority White school.

So what I find is that they rate the majority White school the lowest, and then rate the Latinx, mixed and Black schools much higher.

Val: I read your research both as a former student in these spaces and as a parent. And specifically as a parent of a child, who's trying to negotiate high school. Right? So we are right smack dab in the middle of the group that you studied. My son wants to go to the neighborhood school, and the other option is actually the school where my husband teaches. And so, mostly for my son it's like, “I don't want to go to school with my dad. You know, I want to have, like, my own space and friends.”

And, you know, I want to honor, I want to honor his choice. And also, I was thinking like, as a parent, how do I set him up for the best case scenario? Because again, like you, just being familiar with the research on what the system can be like for Black boys, you know, I'm nervous. Right? I only got two shots at parenting to get this right. Like, how do I set them up for success?

And, I think I'm at the point where I feel like I can supplement anything academically that they have going on, that they might miss, you know. And I, I feel like an affirming space for their racial identity is still super important.

So if I had to choose, right, I want them to be in a space where they do feel affirmed. And yeah, I just was really struck by some of those decisions that specifically Black parents have to make in “Where can I have, like, the least exposure to racism? That, signed me up for that one.”

So that's kind of exactly where we are in grappling with, you know, how to make this choice for our kids.

But something I would love to hear you talk more about is this position choice, right? That you allude to in your research.

Andrew: Yeah, that was, that was fascinating. Can you explain to us what position choice is?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: So, position choice comes from another educational researcher, her name is Camille Cooper. And so, the idea of position choice is taking a few things into account. One, it's thinking about intersectional positionality, which I'll, I'll break down what that means.

So intersectional, we mean that, based upon our gender, our race, our age, our, I don't know, we can think, our location, that there are particular vulnerabilities and advantages associated with all of those things. By intersectionality, I mean, that those things intersect, right? So you have different vulnerabilities and advantages, if you are a White, high-income, woman as compared to a Black, high-income, woman, right? And there's an intersection with the difference between being a Black, high-income, woman, and a Black, high-income, man, or a Black, low-income, woman and a Black, low-income, man.

Right? So we can think about how the intersections of our social statuses really impact our advantages and vulnerabilities. What Camille Cooper does is reminds us that we bring all of those advantages and vulnerabilities to our school choices. Right? And so that's where she dives in on position choice.

Andrew: So this is, like, taking the idea of intersectionality. This idea that all of our various identities impact the way that we interact in the world, and then applying it to school choice. Looking at the position that our identities put us in and how that impacts our choice. Is that right?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly. And I think what she does, which is really important, is that I think sometimes when we think about school choices, we think about people coming to them tabula rasa, right? Like, “I just show up and I'm just making this choice and I'm just doing whatever I want.” What she really reminds us is that your choices are positioned both within your local racial educational structure. So what segregation looks like in your particular community, what are the racialized ways in which academic resources may differ across your community? That's part of your position, right? So thinking about your local geography.

The other position that you have is thinking about your own experiences in that system, and you bring that into your school choices, right? So as, as a parent, you're bringing your educational experiences to that choice. You're also bringing your students' educational experiences so far in the system into that choice.

Val: Is this position choice freedom or is it bondage? You know? Like, at some point in this housing search, I was frustrated because it felt like, you know what? The “man,” the system is not going to let me move out of this box that they think I belong in.

Right? So I don't even entertain certain neighborhoods for that very reason. Right? And I had not heard of the term that position choice, but I'm, I'm feeling it very deeply.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Oh, that, that is a question! Is it freedom or is it bondage? Wow. I'm going to sit with that for a while. I'm going to be honest.

So I think in particular, you said you have a Black son? So when you're thinking about his position choice, you're thinking about it from the context of his both vulnerabilities and advantages as a Black boy in particular school spaces. Right?

And so, the question of, is that freedom or is it bondage? It's bondage… right? I think what's, what's important. And I think, again, this is why I really emphasize that you're making choices within a racialized system. You're making choices within a system that has a long history of racism, that has a long history of who it responds to or doesn't respond to in settings. Right? That is bondage.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: And then you have choice within that. Right? So, Linn Posey-Maddox really, uh, specifically when she talks about Black parents making school choices, she has a piece out that's entitled “There is No Right Choice.” Right?

So you can think about, okay, I can choose for, in your case, like, my Black boy to live in a neighborhood that may have access to a particular school that has a lot of resources, but what does that mean in terms of his own risks to police violence in that? What does that mean in terms of his own risk of being seen as a criminal within that school and in potential impacts that that can have on his educational trajectory?

Or you can make the choice where you say, okay, let me put them in a space where he may not experience as much within school, racism, right? Or racial biases. But it's not that you're escaping racism. Because racism still exists. Racism structures what's available in that school or not. So it's not the escape of racism. Right? And I think that's the, that's the part of the bondage, right? That racism is shaping what's accessible in these school spaces, but also it's shaping your experience once you get into the school.

Val: And I'm looking specifically at, this was, it was a tough read! Because it just, you know it’s so pertinent to like where I am right now. But just you write “Black parents did not express racialized school preferences while Black students desire to avoid the White school.” But to think that there is no right choice, like I am just doing the best within what I know to be true or possible. And it does stink to have to think of it that way. Like, what at, at this point, and this is true. It's like, what school can he go to where it's the least amount of harm caused? That is the choice.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Also, Mary Patillo and her work on school choice grapples with that same question, right? On Black parents in Chicago, feeling like, “Do I really have a choice?” Right? Like she even questions this idea of choice, right? Like, if you're in a system where you don't feel like people are responding to you, or you don't have the true information when you're making these choices, or you're choosing between bad and worse, it's a choice of a misnomer.

Is that really choice? Yeah.

Val: Uh, that’s heavy. It’s something that I feel personally as a Black parent and I’m still grappling with whether or not I think that there is a choice or if I don’t really have the ability to express those racial preferences in a way that maybe some other parents do.

In your research, you find that Black parents don’t really express racial preferences, do you think that has something to do with it?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: In particular, I think about the Black parents, not expressing racial preferences, it's not that they didn't have any particular desires for schools, right? So I'm seeing, like, things such as graduation rates and safety ratings are really influencing their preferences, but that the racial demographics of schools don't.

The way that I think about that is that I really think, I really kind of am drawing on the qualitative literature in which Black parents in particular are really grappling with how to best educate their child, and to think about their potential vulnerability to racism within schools. And that once they think about the balance of those things, they really have what Linn Posey-Maddox says is that there is no right choice, right?

So, I might be choosing a majority White school where I think that my child might receive more resources, but at that same time, they may be more criminalized within that school. The research shows that they may be more likely to be suspended or that their behaviors be seen as violent, or disrespectful as compared to other students.

They may look at majority Black school and say, “That might be a space where my student really is empowered in their Blackness,” right? But given our racist structure of schools, they may not have as many resources as this majority White school. And so I think when I think about the balance of all those things, they're kind of like there's, there's pros and cons on both sides?

And so there just is no right racial choice for schools, right? That no matter what racial demographics of schools they're choosing, there's a potential disadvantage to each of those spaces,

Andrew: Right. Black parent lack of racial preference is not like Black parents are post-racial - that Black parents think that racism is over and it doesn't matter, but just that, like, “I'm going to have to give up something no matter where I go.”

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: That’s exactly right.

Andrew: That’s hard.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: The way I think about student, Black students, is particular that they're looking at their, their racial, what I call, like, vulnerability to racism in schools. Like, they know, they're in this context in which they're choosing schools in the era of Black Lives Matter. In the era, in which they're seeing children that are their same age being, uh, brutalized by police or, or murdered by police.

They're looking at this in the context of hearing about Black students' experiences in some of these majority White schools and they're saying, like, “If I have a option to avoid that, then I will.”

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Right? And even, there's really recent work, so this is Dominique Baker, what she finds is that in states and in communities where there's been more hate crimes, then Black students are more likely to choose to attend HBCUs or historically black colleges.

Right? So it gives us foray into, like, theoretically I'm saying like, this is probably because of their perceptions of racism and racist experiences in these White spaces. But what she's showing is like, when you actually look at their choices in relationship to hate crimes? Like, that's exactly what you're seeing, at least in that transition from high school to college. And I think that's probably what's happening in that transition from middle to high school as well.

Val: As you were talking, I was thinking just about several experiences where my own two children have come home and they would say, like, “Oh, this teacher's racist.” Like, so it's not even witnessing it in social media or outside, like the students, the children know, and they feel it. And it's something that is talked about amongst their peers, right? They know which teachers, and, um, they want no part of it.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly. Exactly.

Andrew: Do you, do you have a, uh, sort of, theory about why that's showing up more for Black students than Black parents in this moment?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Yeah. I think it goes to, again, this idea of position choice, right? That Black students are doing this from the position of “I've had schooling experiences,” exactly what you're saying, Val, “and in those schooling experiences, I have the racist teacher,” or “I've experienced these racist actions. And so now I have the potential autonomy to make a different kind of choice.”

So I think that's the trajectory or the positionality that students are coming to this choice. I think parents are coming to this choice often from a very different space. They're thinking about it in the context of their own schooling experiences, but they're also coming in, often coming to this from the context of these other experiences as well, such as choosing a neighborhood, right? Or, thinking about their work experiences

Val: It is difficult because, um, to your question, Andrew, it's not that we don't think about it. We think about it a lot. But when my daughter came home and she was telling me an experience that she had in fifth grade, and I looked at her, I was like, “Oh, you had your first microaggression.” So, my option as a Black parent was to say, to teach you how to deal with this, because it's not going anywhere. Um, and that just, that's the reality.

So it's not that I don't want to remove them from these racist situations. Instead, I have to teach them how to deal with them. Because as you mentioned, my experience, you know, in school, in work, in life has shown me I have to figure out how to deal with it. And so I was teaching her the language of that. You know, and that was the best I could do to protect her.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: I think that's exactly right. Right? I think by the time parents get to this school choice for, especially this middle school to high school, they’ve built a toolkit kit for being able to navigate racism. Right? Whereas students at that point may not necessarily have built that toolkit yet, or understand what that toolkit looks like, as they navigate the rest of the world.

Andrew: The kids feel like if I avoid the White school, I will avoid the racism and parents have been disabused of that idea. That you're going to have to deal with it sooner or later.

Val: Yep.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Right.

Andrew: Well, that's uplifting.

Val: So, we typically ask people to help us solve racism each episode. What you got? What you got?

Andrew: We haven't, we haven't done it yet. We're close. We're close.

Val: Each episode, we're a little bit closer.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: A little bit closer to solving racism!

Um, I think what my work really shows is that the fix is multi-layered and complicated.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: What I am finding about these race-based, anti-Black perceptions of school safety, again, that it's built in individual racial biases. It’s built within cultural stereotypes. And it's also built within the role of segregated school experiences that’s influencing your perceptions of potential schools.

Right? So it's like, you have to, for me, you have to hit it at all three levels in order to really have an impact on the potential for integrated schools and racial equity.

I mean, I think often we want, and often school districts and teachers, everybody wants, like, “What's the one thing that's gonna solve racism?”

Andrew: Where’s the silver bullet?

Val: Yeah,

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Where is it?! Where's the thing? It's school choice, right? Like, that was the solution, right? School choice. Like, breakup neighborhood segregation from schools. And now we solved racism. It's like-

Val: No,

Dr. Chantal Hailey: -no, that's not. No, that doesn't work. No, actually people have just expressed their own forms of racism within school choice. Right? Like th that's actually what happens.

And so I don't want to offer that there's one simple solution. I, as a sociologist, see it as multi-layered. There has to be shifts in policy and shifts in individual biases, and shifts in our media narratives, in order for these things to happen.

Right? So, just because you allow families to go to school anywhere in the city, doesn't mean that people will actually make those choices. ‘Cause they're doing so often from their own racial biases. Right? So if you don't change both of those things at the same time, you're not going to solve racism.

Honestly, I think the only solve to racism it's completely upend the advantages that are given and reified to Whiteness in America. Actually, around the world.

Val: I appreciate you taking our question seriously.

Andrew: I mean, I think you’re probably right!

Val: You are doing it! Yeah, you are doing it. So thank you.

Andrew: And I mean we've said this a number of times, that is a fairly, like, I think that's probably true. And that's pretty simple. It's not easy! But it's pretty simple.

Val: Pretty clear cut. We know. Yep. We know what needs to happen.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Upend the advantages given to White people. Now, how does that happen when White people hold the power? I don't know! I don't know. I don't know if it's realistic, but I mean, that's, I think that's, that's the, to solve racism, you have to solve racism. That's a circular answer, but that's the reality.

Val: That is the reality.

Andrew: Right. Well, I mean, I think that does it does, and I, you probably know where I'm going to go here, Val, but like, the fact that the kids are not at yet as, wrecked by racism as the parents are to the power of the kind of generational work of, of this, of solving racism. That, that we are not going to solve it in our generation, but we can set our kids up to be a little better, a little closer to solving it and that, then their kids are a little closer and their kids are a little closer.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Do you mind if I respond to that?

Val: Not at all! Do it! Do it, do it.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Uhhhh! Cause I'm like, I'm optimistic. But I'm also, I am always cautiously optimistic.

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Specifically with that, with that finding, right? Because I think what's important with the differences between parents and students, is that we're capturing generational differences. Right? In which we have seen that explicit racial biases, and explicit use of stereotypes, and all of those things, have diminished across generations.

But we're also capturing age differences. And so, I'm not sure, and this is the caveat I want to give to my research, I'm not sure whether the differences between parents and students are about generational shifts, right? So that we'll continue to see things get better over time. Caveat, that's not what we're saying with the Black families. Or are we capturing age differences? Meaning that as students age into thinking about potential anxieties around their own children's social mobility, that they then go back to enacting the forms of, uh, racial biases and racial preferences that their parents had.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Uhhhhh. I know! I mean, the first time I looked at those data, that was my interpretation too. And then I had to sit back and say wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Andrew: Well, what would it mean to try to push that towards the more hopeful version? Like what, what does it take to, to push those current students to not grow into the racial stereotypes of their parents? What does that look like?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: I think that goes to thinking about how to use school choice as a platform for integration within school systems. Right? I think my answer to that question is that it has to be controlled choice. And so what that means is you, as a parent and as a student can express your racial preferences for schools. But that the school system also has to control, what that match between people's preferences and the actual outcome of demographics of schools looks like.

Val: Mmhmm.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: In a controlled choice system, parent can both express and students can both express their preferences, but school systems can control what the actual demographics of schools looks like in end

Val: Right.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: And potentially give students more exposure to different racial groups.

Because what my other research is showing is that the fewer Black students in their middle school, the more likely they are to express these race-based, biases about safety in schools, right?

Andrew: Hmm.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: So that’s, like, one lever. Again, caveat- research shows that that lever, it's not just about exposure to different, racial groups within schools, but it's also about that being done in a place in which particular racial groups don't hold more advantages. Right?

Val: Right.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: So, just because a White student has exposure to more Black students in their school, if it's done within a context of within school segregation.

Val: Right.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Meaning that all the White kids are in the advantage and AP classes and all the Black kids are in normal classes. That just reifies the idea that White people are smarter than Black people. So, like that doesn't break that narrative, right?

If you're going to intentionally desegregate schools, that it has to be done within a form that's also grappling with the racism that exists in schools and upending those racialized structures within schools and things like tracking and things like school suspension.

Like I think it again, how do you solve racism? By upending the power given to White people within racialized spaces? Like, it-

Val: Yeah.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: -has to be done within that context.

Andrew: yeah. Because I think one of the things that your work really highlights, which is one thing we think about a lot at Integrated Schools, is just, like, that policies are really important. And, like, Whiteness finds a way. Regardless of the policy that, that, you know, as Val mentioned last episode, like White supremacy is crafty. And so, if you just change policies and you don't ever change hearts and minds, that, that we White folks will find ways around the best construed policies.

But that if contact in the context of a well-designed racially affirming space does actually lead to changes in hearts and minds. And so, how do we kind of do both things at the same time?

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Exactly. Exactly. It can't be an either/or. You can't have culturally responsive curricula in a system in which only Black students are getting that curricula. That's not-

Val: Right.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: -helpful for upending racism.

Andrew: Right,

Val: Right.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Or you can’t have culturally responsive curricula or exposure to Black authors in a context in which White students are just talking to each other. It's not upending racism.

Val: Right.

Andrew: My goodness. I could talk to you all day.

Val: I know this was fantastic.

Andrew: It’s so good! I’m really grateful, grateful to you for doing this work. It can't be easy, the work you do. Um, but, but it's important and we're all better for you having done it. And, um, certainly I feel very grateful for you taking the time to come on the show.

Dr. Chantal Hailey: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation.

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Andrew: So Val, what did you think?

Val: Uh, always in my feelings about these things. Um, I think I want to start with just her own schooling experience, and how her own story, both that, of her personal journey and the journey of her, like, family members that she talks about in terms of them doing this integration work, how that influenced so much of her research. And so much of her commitment to understanding how this operates and how it impacts students.

I think I also really want to acknowledge her centering the experience of students in developing this autonomy to say, like, “Hey, this is the kind of schooling experience I want too,” I don't know that, just generally, even in schools, we have enough of those conversations with young people. So I really, I just want to highlight that to start.

Andrew: Yeah. It's another really important piece of her work that feels really additive to the conversation because, certainly a lot of conversations about school choice happen at the elementary school level where kids really don't have the ability to have much of a say. But, we miss things if we skip over what students actually want.

I think that idea of, you know, of position choice and what are high school kids bringing to the conversation from their own experiences, that might be different than what their parents are expecting them to, to have when they show up in these spaces. And, and how, what might we lean on those feelings and those perspectives from the students themselves to, to try to push the conversation forward.

Val: Right. And I think that's really important. The parenting aspect of this, because if my children, both Black children, came to me and said, “I don't want to be at the school because I don't feel safe,” you know, “emotionally or psychologically,” or “I don't feel like my identity is affirmed.” Like, I have to take that into consideration when thinking about where they go to school.

I feel like sometimes, I'm just going to guess. You help me, you help me with the White parents. I feel like sometimes White parents think, like, this we'll put them in the, in the best situation, you know, in the future financially or the most connected, even though it might be damaging to them because it is a place that is steeped in Whiteness and White supremacy. And I just, what are your thoughts on that?

Andrew: Yeah. Even just the way we talk about “good schools” and “bad schools” is about the ways that we think it may or may not set our kids up to make money in the future. Right? It's like all steeped in capitalism. And the metrics of success are like, is it preparing you to get the best job possible?

And, even if you take that framing as, as valuable, which I struggle with, for sure. You know, I think we still don't actually do a good job, because we're not actually setting our kids up for success if we are putting them in spaces where they're only surrounded by other White kids.

Val: Okay. I have a question. I have a question. I love you being the White person I ask questions to! Um, do you think it feels the same for White folks in, like, do they feel racially affirmed in like these all White spaces? Is that like the same type of feeling that I'm describing for-

Andrew: Mmm.

Val: -my son and his experiences?

Andrew: Hmm. That….

Val: Look at me asking you doctor questions!

Andrew: For real! For real. I, um. I know I will, I will try to speak for all White parents ‘cause that's my, that's my role here.

Val: Awesome! Awesome.

Andrew: In my, in my own experience, it doesn't feel like racial affirmation. It feels like the lack of having to confront race-

Val: Hmm,

Andrew: -as a thing at all. Right? It's like the absence of race as a, as anything that even needs to be talked about or addressed.

Val: Yeah. And their safety in not having to address that.

Andrew: Yeah, but I don't think it's actually identity affirming at all, really. You know, like the, the homogeneity of an all White space, I think actually makes, and I don't know that there's research to back this up, but certainly, like, in my experience, I feel like it's much harder to affirm your own identity as a White kid in an all White space, because there is only one way to be. And in more diverse-

Val: Hmm!

Andrew: -spaces, It's easier to say like, okay, there's like eight different ways that, that you can be a kid! That you can be an eighth grader, that you can be a sophomore in high school. And so it's easier to kind of plug yourself into that in a way that doesn't feel as toxic.

Val: No, that, that description feels super affirming to me, right? That because we have already embraced, like, this difference in diversity around us that I can show up however I am as a White kid too. And not only have to be one way. I don't know, you keep making cases for us to integrate. So….

Andrew: I'm trying! I'm trying.

Val: So, I'm here for that.

Andrew: Um. Well, let me ask you something about your son's choice.

Val: Yeah.

Andrew: Because this is something I struggle with is, is on the one hand, obviously the older kids get the more important it is that they feel some sense of ownership over their own-

Val: Right.

Andrew: -fate. And, it is potentially more comfortable for a middle school kid to go to a school, I mean, we see this in Dr. Hailey's research, right? Like, kids prefer schools that are full of kids who are like them. And, where do you acknowledge the autonomy of your kids, and where do you draw a line and say, “No,” like, “actually this is, this is more important.”

Val: Yeah. Our particular family, we just have a unique perspective because of our professions. Right? And so, we can talk pretty honestly about school systems and how they work and how they function. I can say, because we have not detracked, here's why you are taking all honors classes. Here's the opportunities that it provides you. And so those are things that we talk about very honestly, because we know how the system works, specifically for Black and Brown kids.

You know, Andrew, I got, I got two shots at this. That's it. And, you know, I think I really got into my feelings about whether or not I have a choice. Whether it’s freedom or bondage. Like, I really got into my feelings about that a lot, both in reading her research and talking to her, because the stakes feel really high. The stakes feel really high.

Andrew: Can you say more about the, like what, what feels high about the stakes?

Val: Yeah. I don't think that my child or my children have a lot of opportunities to mess up. And, it feels like a, a significant responsibility to try to put them in school systems where they can come out whole. Right?

You know. Dr. Hailey talks about her elite. White, private, education as a high schooler. And that's not even what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the schools that will do the least amount of harm. Like, how can I put my kid in a school that does the least amount of harm? And I think that came up in her research as well. Like, Black parents were like, I'm stuck! So, I would like to have a preference, but guess what? You know. Like, I am trying to make sure my kids have, have the least amount of harm.

And I think for some Black parents that does come up with, like, “How do I get them into the most elite schools?” And for others, it's like, “How do I make sure their identities are affirmed and that they can survive this,” you know, “without hating themselves or-”

Andrew: Recognizing that, that while there's no reason that those two things need to be in conflict, but so often they are.

Val: Right. Right, right.

Andrew: I mean, I think that's part of the appeal of HBCUs is that you kind of, you get, you get all of it.

Val: Yep. I mean, my whole K-12 experience was HBCU. Woo-woo!

Andrew: Right, right!

Val: Is that good or bad? I don't know. But I turned out alright.

Andrew: But you also didn't have 72 AP classes offered at your high school or,

Val: Right. I didn't, I didn't. But, you know, my own story in terms of my parents and set around the decisions they made, offered a level of privilege too. Right? They were educators. My grandfather was an early childhood professor. So from the very beginning, I was, like, in a safe space. Do all of our students of color have that same kind of protection? Not necessarily, right?

Andrew: I feel like I spent a lot of time trying to convince other White parents that the stakes aren't nearly as high as they think they are.

Val: Mmm.

Andrew: There’s this, like, sense that I've got to get them into the right preschool, you know? “We're thinking about getting pregnant, and so we’ve got to get on a wait list because if they don't get into the right preschool, then they're not going to get into the right kindergarten. And then they're not going to get to the right middle school and then they're not going to get,” you know, and that kind of like the, the, the stakes feel super high.

And I think a lot of times that is overblown. And I don't discount at all the, the realness of this, the stakes for you and for your kids. And, that's why I'm grateful that we can have these conversations.

Val: And I, and I'm, I'm glad you said that because I think what is really important to continue to emphasize is that we all, all of us value our children. And I think that its sometimes assumed that parents of color don't value their children as much, aren't grappling with, like, “How do I get to the right school?” or “How do I make sure that they have the best opportunity?”

And that, that's hurtful. Because why is there an assumption that I don't care as much about my kid or that my kid isn't as valuable as your kid. Right? And so. I think one thing that's really important for us to connect on, cross racially, is that we all care about our kids period, point blank.

And I'm imploring White people to think about why they are trying to restrict access to kids whose parents love them just as much, find them just as valuable and absolutely deserve the world, right? Like, that's what I really want us to grapple with.

Andrew: I think, one of the things I really appreciate about Dr. Hailey's research is, is the way that it kind of decenters Whiteness. Because we know that White parents have this like racial hierarchy of quality of school, right? The, the Bellingham Hunt research, like, “The Blacker school gets, the worse it is. The less likely I want to send my kid there.” We know that that's, that kind of exists.

And I, I feel like so much of the conversation around education assumes that that is, like, true in actuality, not just in perception. And so then we have these ideas where, like, the White schools are the best schools. If we just give more Black kids access to the White schools, we will have improved the lives of these poor Black kids.

And now, we're going to open up these opportunities and the parents don't take it, it's because the parents don't care. But what Dr. Hailey's research shows is that everybody wants the best for their kid, but what's the best for their kid is not the same for everybody across, across racial identity.

Val: Exactly. Exactly. And, why? Why is that, right? Why do Black parents say like, “Uh, this feels more toxic than helpful to my kid”? And why do Latinx or Asian parents be like, “If I'm aligned super close to the Black kids, how does that hurt my kid?” Right? Like, these are. Look y'all, listeners. I really want y'all to, to pull a group together and start talking about what we're talking about here. Because like this, like look? This is when I get stuck trying to fix racism. I'm stuck now.

Andrew: Yeah. I do like that idea, of parents getting together across racial identities and having these conversations. Because it's easy to think that everybody views schools in the same way that you view schools. And, and, you know, I think we try every episode to model how maybe that's not exactly the same for the two of us. But even beyond that, uh, and again, why Dr. Hailey's research feels so powerful is that it is really looking beyond just this kind of Black/White binary.

And, one other thing I wanted to get your take on Val. And we, we sort of got to this near the end of the episode, we see in Dr. Hailey’s research that the students seem to be less racist than the parents. And you and I both took hope from that. Like, the kids are alright, kind of. And she insisted on putting that caveat in there, like, is this that the kids are another generation older, and so have had another generation of conversations and interactions with people and so, are further along? Or is it just that as you go from being a kid to being an adult, the same way that you might become more fiscally conservative, or you might become whatever the older you get, that, that you become, you know, more sort of set in your racist ways?

Val: Yeah. So that's why I think as parents, we have to continue these conversations. And I think, oftentimes that probably feels the most comfortable? I’m really still sitting with the idea that, you know, in, in the all-White spaces, we don't have to acknowledge it.

And I think that's something that I would love to push White folks on who are listening. That also includes in your home, right? Where in my home, we're all looking at our Black faces! Like,

Andrew: Right.

Val: It's not something that we won't acknowledge, ever. Right? And so, um, I think that, that is just something that as parents we can do to not leave to chance, right? To actually talk about these things, um,

Andrew: Yeah, my heart wants the kids to be better off, and I'm sure they are in, in many ways. And, I also think about otherwise progressive White folks, friends of mine who, had I asked in high school, would've been like, “Oh, for sure, integration is where it's at.” And now I look at where they send their kids to school and it's like, oh, um, right. And you have kids. Your perspective on the world shifts.

Val: It does. It does.

Andrew: It is inevitable. But how do we, kind of, hold on to, to those ideals? And how do we hold onto that kind of optimism that, that we see when we look at the research on these students from Dr. Hailey? And how do we, kind of, let that stick around, foster that into, into adulthood?

Val: Right. Because as you've seen in the recent Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearings. Even being like a highly qualified candidate is, is not enough. Right? And so, what type of conversations could have been had in the homes and schools of, of the senators who blatantly said, this person is highly qualified, but just doesn't fit. Right?

Andrew: You mentioned last time, I think a little bit, the importance of finding the victories and of celebrating. And I do think-

Val: That's right.

Andrew: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is a very exciting development.

Val: That's right!

Andrew: And I just think about how hard it was for her to get there. The challenges that she overcame to get there and how impressive it is. And, um, yeah, that's, I think that's a reason to celebrate. That's a reason to be hopeful.

Val: That is to be celebrated.

Andrew: Much, much like, much like Dr. Val! You know, I mean, I'm not cut out for that! But I know, I know a number of people who have gotten there and I, I can only imagine the,even just, you know, we were talking about your high school and, and the lack of AP classes. And the other things you were set up for success in many ways, and also set up to not achieve what you did and yet you did it anyway.

So

Val: Oh, thank you. You know,

Andrew: That’s worth another round of congratulations.

Val: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. You know that Justice Brown Jackson is also from Miami. I'm just saying.

Andrew: Oh, look out!

Val: Look out! Oh, it's going to be nice! Like, I need to start watching all of the, like,

Andrew: Oral arguments - she’s gonna let a little Miami slip . . .

Val: Yes. Ooh! I can't wait.

Andrew: Well, um, this is always a treat, Val. I hope listeners that you enjoyed it. If you did, we'd really appreciate your support. patreon.com/integratedschools. Help us keep making the podcast.

Val: That's really important. And it's also really important that you don't just listen to this and keep this in your heart. Share with others. Talk about it. There are discussion guides that go with each episode and we want you to use them.

Andrew: For sure. Val, it's always a pleasure to be in this with you as I try to know better and do better.

Val: Until next time, friend.