When I began this series “In Search of a Great Kindergarten,” I was convinced that the thesis would be about the need to have clear, transparent, and accessible data for parents making tough choices about schooling for their children. Or, perhaps this piece would end with a call to stay the course with the policy shifts that E4E teachers have been advocating for: improving school climate and discipline policies and increased training and support for teachers delivering college-ready instruction. In my work, I am (for better or for worse) acutely aware of the inequities that are often in the bedrock of our policies and institutions. But the recent violence in Charlottesville was a staggering reminder of the injustice and the hatred that still lives above the surface.
While the recent attack by white supremacists took place thousands of miles away from my home in Los Angeles, it was still too close to home. In 1985, I entered kindergarten in North Carolina, where the KKK was still marching. I was the daughter of black immigrants and the new girl in town so I didn’t dare raise my hand, or my head. Because of my silence, I spent my early academic years placed in remediation, relegated to the back of the classroom with the other black children.
My daughter Asha just had her foray into public education. Hers was smoother than mine, but she, too, is hardly impervious to the racism embedded in our institutions--from our schools to our monuments. Last week was her first week of kindergarten (yes, I finally ended My Search for a Great Kindergarten). As I observed the first day’s morning ritual with other parents, I watched as Asha was the first child to enthusiastically raise her hand with a question. I marveled because it took me years to confidently raise my hand in class. It took Asha about five minutes. Despite the progress I see, she, too, is starting school in an era when the KKK still marches boldly and where black students are grade levels behind the achievement of white peers. This is the dichotomy and the nexus of overt and institutional racism, which is the legacy we are passing down to all our children.
The physical and emotional proximity of the KKK to my daughter’s kindergarten (and mine) also makes me think of Dr. King’s quote: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe the arc is ultimately bent by people uniting personal experience with politics, disrupting inequity, and organizing for change. This arc reminds me of how far my family, education, and this country has and has not come--and what it will take to bend the arc faster.
Statistically speaking, the children of college-educated parents are more likely to go to college. This means Asha was put on a path to college roughly 50 years ago when her grandparents became the first in the family to graduate college. Unlike me, Asha has not been placed in remediation along with the other black children. In fact, she is the only black child in her largely Latinx and Asian kindergarten class. In my public education experience, the only time I stood in a class filled with children that looked like me was when I was placed in remediation in elementary school or in basic math classes in high school (I still struggle with math). When I eventually entered advanced and college-preparatory classes, my peers looked nothing like me, and this trend only worsened in college. The message this sent me and other achieving black students was frightening: students who look like you are failing and falling behind, so don’t look back.
The problem with not looking back is that you neglect to see how your complex individual story of privilege and oppression is part of a trend-line that challenges the notion of values some hold sacred in our country--values like meritocracy, rugged individualism, and assimilation. By the mere virtue of having grandparents and parents who went to college, my daughter is leaps ahead of some of her buddies seated directly beside her. They are all starting public education at the same time, and yet some of her peers are ahead and others are already behind.
So, if education is both the great equalizer and the great divider, where does the arc bend from here? Part of the answer is that we need to stop arguing about whether "failing public schools are the problem" or "poverty is the problem." In my experience not only are both true, but they are interrelated. Because of poverty, our public education system has to work harder to propel students--who do not have the tailwinds of privilege--to college and careers. Working harder means we need focused strategies, support, and resources for schools in impoverished communities and greater accountability to ensure that the most vulnerable aren’t constantly failing and falling behind. Striking the right balance between support and accountability is how we can fight to keep what is virtuous and undo what is unjust--after all, public education is a force for segregation and integration, access and exclusion, a pipeline to college and one to prison.
As I reflect on what will be different and the same for my daughter and me, the clock of urgency will and should be ticking even louder for me. My oppression will fuel my urgency, and my privilege must heighten my courage and responsibility. I must work even harder to bend the arc for my child and for my parents and for all the teachers and students we proudly serve at Educators for Excellence.