“Good” School, or Failing One: Black Parents’ Impossible Choice

I haven’t stopped thinking about Nikole Hannah-Jones’s recent essay in The New York Times Magazine and the questions it raises about Black parents, public education, and the choices we make for our own children.

My grandparents attended segregated schools in Jim Crow-era Mississippi. My Nana only made it through sixth grade. My Granddaddy, a sharecropper, made it through ninth.

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They relocated to Chicago in the 1950s, heeding the call of The Chicago Defender newspaper and countless Black churches urging Black Southerners to join The Great Migration for safety from the KKK and better opportunities for themselves and their children. Granddaddy worked in the steel mills; when my mom was born in the 1960s, he was determined that his only child would go further in school than he and my Nana.

So, he worked two jobs to send her to private Catholic school from kindergarten through 12th grade. He didn’t trust the public school system — particularly the neighborhood school — to give her the education he knew she deserved. 

Public School, Private Lessons

When I look back at the data on the public school my mom would have attended, my Granddaddy had reason to worry: the school’s math and reading scores were low. Maybe my mom would’ve been the exception. Maybe not. But he wasn’t risking it with his only child.

Fast-forward a generation. My mom had four kids. She couldn’t afford to send us all to private school, and she didn’t particularly want to. She hated her Catholic school experience. 

So, we went to public school. 

By first grade, I was struggling to read. Instead of giving me the tools and support I needed, my teacher wanted me to repeat the grade. My mother refused; she knew it wouldn’t fix the fact that they hadn’t taught me to read. 

She also knew that being held back was a big reason my Nana only reached the sixth grade. Getting labeled, bullied, and going without badly needed classroom support in an underfunded school doesn’t help Black kids — or any kid.

So, my mother pulled me out. From second through sixth grade, she homeschooled me. She taught me to read and write. She surrounded me with books. She took responsibility for giving me the education she believed my school had failed to provide. 

New School, Different Problems

When I re-entered public school, I tested above grade level. I took honors classes and advanced placement courses and tested into the “gifted” educational track.

My mom had an ideology: ensuring that her children received a strong education. She wasn’t willing to watch me fall behind and hope the system eventually figured out what to do with me. She understood that far too many students never catch up. She knew that, far too often, our education system isn’t designed to help children who need the most support.

When I returned to school, my mom moved us all into my Granddaddy’s tiny apartment. Seven people. One bedroom. 

She did it because his neighborhood had some of Illinois’ highest-performing public schools. They produced scholars, graduates of top-tier universities, business leaders, and entrepreneurs. 

I went to high school with the children of governors and senators. I was also the lone Black kid in nearly all of my classes. This brought a whole new set of problems.

By Any Means Necessary

A child can only be called “monkey” and the n-word, and be ridiculed for the texture of her hair, for so long before the message sinks in: You don’t belong here. You never will.

The last straw came when a group of white boys tried to hold me down and set my braids on fire. My mom had gone to great lengths to style those braids and I wore them with pride. At school, they had become another weapon to humiliate me.

The racism and bullying became so relentless that I attempted suicide at age 14. 

I think about that now as an adult and as someone who has spent much of my career fighting for educational opportunities for Black children.

My mom did what America tells Black parents to do: She fought for her child. She got me access to the “good schools.” And still, she couldn’t protect me from what happened when I walked through those doors.

That’s what sits with me in the conversation about Hannah-Jones’ viral essay, Black parents and education.

In our household, deciding between sending a child to failing, mostly Black public schools and a racist environment in the halls of successful, mostly white ones wasn’t a theoretical policy debate. It was a decision about our lives and our futures.

We talk about school choice as an ideology. We talk about public education as an ideology. We talk about integration, neighborhood schools, private schools, and homeschooling through political frameworks that can become detached from the realities Black families with school-age children are actually experiencing.

If a mother sits across from a first-grade teacher who says her son or daughter can’t read and must repeat a grade, what is that mother supposed to do? How long should she wait — and how hard should she push — for the school to get it right? How much of her child’s education must she sacrifice on the hope that the system might eventually improve?

And what happens when getting your child into the “good school” brings racism, bullying, violence, and emotional damage?

‘No-Win Situations’

Black parents have been navigating these questions for generations because, when it comes to access to a quality education, America has never been equal. And Black children have never received the education they deserved without a fight. 

We fought for access to schools we were legally prohibited from attending. We fought for resources in schools that were deliberately starved of them. We fought to get our children into advanced classes, gifted programs and college pipelines. We moved. We paid tuition. We homeschooled. We worked second jobs. We used relatives’ addresses. We did whatever we thought might give our children a fighting chance.

And Black families are still making impossible calculations.

We know public education is a public good worth protecting. We also know what it feels like when the public system fails your child.

We know school integration opened doors that generations of Black children had been denied. We also know walking through those doors has not always meant our children were welcomed, protected, or even seen.

We know every child deserves a great school in their own community. We also know parents cannot put their offspring’s childhood on hold while America figures out how to finally deliver that promise.

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My Granddaddy couldn’t wait. My mother couldn’t wait.

And when my first-grade teacher wanted to retain me rather than teach me to read, my mother decided I couldn’t wait either.

Today, I know my mom made the best decisions she could throughout my educational journey.

But, my God, Black parents are so often handed no-win situations and then expected to somehow choose correctly.

Ameshia Cross is a Democratic political strategist for national, state and local campaigns, a regular political commentator and contribution CNN, MS Now, NBC, BBC, SiriusXM, iHeart Radio and more. She is also a former campaign and communications advisor for former President Barack Obama.

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