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.
Thank you for writing this. I've been feeling that exact same sting in Chicago, as I walk by the private school in my neighborhood hosting recess and PE and a fall festival for kids with pumpkin decorating and a hayride in a parking lot, while my 4th grader does all virtual school from our couch. Her teacher is amazing, and her public school is amazing, and I have also tried to talk myself out of my waves of jealousy and anger by reminding myself that I believe in public education for the long haul, and that means that this is what we have to deal with right now. Still, it feels terrible on so many levels, seeing what my kid is missing out on and also knowing in a deep way that so many CPS kids are in a way worse situation than my family is. I really appreciate your acknowledgment of this very real pain. And also your continued advocacy for public education. Your writing has helped me sharpen my beliefs and values around public education, which is sustaining me (barely) during this time and that I will carry forward into the future.
My heart swells as I sink into this situation with you. You and John are incredible people and Maya is so blessed to be yours. You are in a vice grip of difficulty that is surely changing you and yours at a very deep level. The book you’ve unearthed is surely going to refine your voice and clarify the lost understanding we once had surrounding public education. Vital stuff. Diamonds are being made under this kind of pressure - beautiful, clear light capturing and sparkling. 💕
I've never written a comment to you but today feels like the day!
I am one of those parents with two kids under the white tents in Western Massachusetts. I am also the founder and director of a preschool community with the forever-goal of becoming an anti-racist and abolitionist institution. In our ten year history we have gone from 100% of a mostly white school of families paying full tuition to 60% of our much-less-white school of families paying full (plus extra) tuition. A bunch of families come for free. So this topic, of school integration, school choice, and inequity lives large in my mind, in my heart, in my house, and in the community with which I organize. I would LOVE to talk about the details of all this with you someday as I so value your work and commitment. And I agree wholeheartedly that the issue is not simple in any way. I feel frustrated by the way the private/public/charter debate gets simplified AND I can understand and connect with many of the voices I read/hear. I have important reasons for sending my kids to private school AND important reasons for supporting the public schools and families in my area. I think revolution is going to have a lot to do with recreating the system from the outside and I say this as a teacher who has tried to work from within, teaching public Kindergarten to 22 kids on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as well as to 12 kids in rural Vermont.
Courtney, thank you for making the inequities and the unfairness of our education system so clear and so personal. While my friends bemoaned the privilege of Bethesda's elite public schools and private ones and sent their kids to them anyway, I sent my son to public schools with majorities of kids of color. He got an amazing education -- not an elite one with a ticket to Harvard, but an excellent one academically, socially and politically. He's 28 now -- has amazing values, cares so deeply about inequity, understands his own white privilege, loves his friends and his rescue dogs, committed his career to doing good, married the valedictorian in his high school class who is now a biomedical engineer. In sum, he's a really good man. And I credit the public schools, and everything he learned there, almost entirely.
Thank you for writing this. I've been feeling that exact same sting in Chicago, as I walk by the private school in my neighborhood hosting recess and PE and a fall festival for kids with pumpkin decorating and a hayride in a parking lot, while my 4th grader does all virtual school from our couch. Her teacher is amazing, and her public school is amazing, and I have also tried to talk myself out of my waves of jealousy and anger by reminding myself that I believe in public education for the long haul, and that means that this is what we have to deal with right now. Still, it feels terrible on so many levels, seeing what my kid is missing out on and also knowing in a deep way that so many CPS kids are in a way worse situation than my family is. I really appreciate your acknowledgment of this very real pain. And also your continued advocacy for public education. Your writing has helped me sharpen my beliefs and values around public education, which is sustaining me (barely) during this time and that I will carry forward into the future.
Absolutely moving and poignant. Thank you, Courtney.
My heart swells as I sink into this situation with you. You and John are incredible people and Maya is so blessed to be yours. You are in a vice grip of difficulty that is surely changing you and yours at a very deep level. The book you’ve unearthed is surely going to refine your voice and clarify the lost understanding we once had surrounding public education. Vital stuff. Diamonds are being made under this kind of pressure - beautiful, clear light capturing and sparkling. 💕
What a beautiful essay, Courtney. It brought tears to my eyes!
Beautiful, poignant, and so true my friend. Thank you for writing this. And I utterly relate.
Hi Courtney,
I've never written a comment to you but today feels like the day!
I am one of those parents with two kids under the white tents in Western Massachusetts. I am also the founder and director of a preschool community with the forever-goal of becoming an anti-racist and abolitionist institution. In our ten year history we have gone from 100% of a mostly white school of families paying full tuition to 60% of our much-less-white school of families paying full (plus extra) tuition. A bunch of families come for free. So this topic, of school integration, school choice, and inequity lives large in my mind, in my heart, in my house, and in the community with which I organize. I would LOVE to talk about the details of all this with you someday as I so value your work and commitment. And I agree wholeheartedly that the issue is not simple in any way. I feel frustrated by the way the private/public/charter debate gets simplified AND I can understand and connect with many of the voices I read/hear. I have important reasons for sending my kids to private school AND important reasons for supporting the public schools and families in my area. I think revolution is going to have a lot to do with recreating the system from the outside and I say this as a teacher who has tried to work from within, teaching public Kindergarten to 22 kids on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as well as to 12 kids in rural Vermont.
Courtney, thank you for making the inequities and the unfairness of our education system so clear and so personal. While my friends bemoaned the privilege of Bethesda's elite public schools and private ones and sent their kids to them anyway, I sent my son to public schools with majorities of kids of color. He got an amazing education -- not an elite one with a ticket to Harvard, but an excellent one academically, socially and politically. He's 28 now -- has amazing values, cares so deeply about inequity, understands his own white privilege, loves his friends and his rescue dogs, committed his career to doing good, married the valedictorian in his high school class who is now a biomedical engineer. In sum, he's a really good man. And I credit the public schools, and everything he learned there, almost entirely.