Private school tents & public longing

The bright white tents went up a couple of weeks ago. I knew they were coming. I know someone whose kindergartener is at the private school down the street, Park Day School, and she told me that they were headed back in person soon. But there was something about walking by, seeing the well-appointed outdoor classrooms, the white boards shaded by giant Redwoods, that stung.

My own kid, who goes to the Title I public school a block away, is still in full-time distance learning with no end in sight. Her teacher is a genius at keeping things interesting and the kids engaged, and, even so, Maya is really sick of it. She hears the word Zoom and recoils. There are only so many online dance parties one can endure before craving the real sweaty thing.

What to do with the sting? What to do with my daughter’s questions about why her friend gets to go back to school and she doesn’t? And maybe you, the parent of a private school student, are thinking—and what do I do with this information?

I’m not sure, to be honest. But I think it’s worth telling the truth about the sting and the contrasting experiences, nonetheless. I think it’s worth exploring how this fork in the road is representative of what happens when we have a private track for something that we’ve otherwise decided is a public good—in this case, the education of children.

In 1938, the Educational Policies Commission wrote a treatise called The Purposes of Education in American Democracy. I ordered an original copy from an antique bookstore and it arrived in a padded envelope, yellowed pages rich with lofty language about what our founding as a country has to do with our education system, what we owe our children in this United States of America. In part it reads: “The mere guarantee of the right to pursue happiness would be but an empty gesture unless some means were provided to give effect to this promise. First occurred the struggle to make them free. Then came the battle, which has not been full won to this day, to make the schools minister effectively to the varying needs of all the people.”

It’s strangely relevant all these years later. Our kids are so resilient, but many of them are suffering with the isolation and dominance of 2D learning. They long for the happy release of recess together, the classroom crowded with books and math cubes, the warm bodies of their dedicated teachers. Right now, some of our kids get it all, just outdoors (which, frankly, sounds even better!); some have to settle for that longing. The difference is money.

In our family’s case, we actually have the money. We could buy our daughter access to that white tent fluttering in the Oakland breeze, but we still believe that public education is our country’s greatest antidote to being an empty gesture democracy. We’ve committed ourselves to the idea—perhaps naively—of public education, of showing up over a long haul for a learning community that serves any kid who finds his or her way to the blacktop. Some days, that commitment is easy and joyful. Some days, these days, there are moments where I feel the sting of what I’m choosing not to give her. And, if I’m honest, the sting of what I’m choosing not to give myself (the solitude required to do my work, more ease in our family juggle, etc.).

It’s not just my feelings at stake, of course, but a whole district. Families have left even our most highly-resourced public schools for private schools. That means spots have opened up at the highly-resourced public schools, which are being filled by our most strategic (read: largely privileged) parents. The lower-resourced schools, which always struggle with enrollment, are finding it even harder to attract students. Less students equals less funding (funding is allotted by the state on a per pupil basis). So while each family is making what feels like an individual decision, their choice ricochets through the system, impacting the city’s most vulnerable kids.

Enrollment season is coming up, and all of this is being exacerbated. Last year at this time, privileged families were choosing between various educational settings—schools (both private and public) that offer well-appointed art studios and innovation labs or the vast majority of public schools that struggle to keep a librarian each year, or afford art or gym teachers. This year, those same families can pay for the likelihood, if not the guarantee, that their kids will get to be in an actual classroom, while the rest of the city’s kids keep logging in and praying that a vaccine materializes by next fall and/or productive labor negotiations take place.

One important note: I was speaking with LaKisha Young the other day. LaKisha is one of our city’s most active educational organizers, and she said that only 20% of the Black and Brown families that they work with said they would go back to school if it was an option tomorrow. Many families are too scared of the risks (and logically so—Black and Brown folks are disproportionately affected by COVID-19). She also feels that lots of kids are making great strides in online learning; the kids that her organization, the Oakland REACH, worked with over the summer jumped up an average of two grade levels in reading.

This is not a simple story. I’ve learned that the stories we tell about our kids, about our schools, about our choices never are. But I am noticing that the contrasts have never felt so stark. This year has been a time of dystopian reckoning. Inequities that always existed have become un-ignorable. When I see our city’s richest kids sitting in the dappled sunlight of those tents and our poorest struggling with crappy hot spots donated by the district while staying in motel rooms because they’ve been kicked out of their housing—well, there’s no denying that something has gone very wrong.

Healthcare, housing, and education should be basic human rights in this, the richest country on earth, and yet we’ve created caste systems for all three (thus, why we are also the most unequal country on earth). Somewhere along the way, we mistook choice for justice; this pandemic has stripped us of that delusion.

Yesterday, I heard Maya by herself in her own room, putzing around, building a Lego house or making art, as she does, and to herself, all alone, she said, “I love Ms. Aviles.”

That’s her teacher’s name. My daughter has never been in the same room as her beloved 1st grade teacher. She’s never felt her reassuring hand on her shoulder, or seen her magnetic smile in person. But, even so, she has been steadied by her dedication and delighted by her ingenuity. The bad news is that our system has been designed with profound moral flaws; the good news is that our teachers and our kids are courageously made nonetheless.