I saw the best minds of my generation…
This kind of introspection and eyes-wide-open honesty is why I love reading Ta-Nahisi Coates, over at The Atlantic:
I spent 17 hours yesterday driving through New England with a single Dad from the projects, here in Harlem, who was trying to get his son into an elite boarding school, for high school… If I’m honest with myself, I know that while, as young man, I laughed off my school failures publicly. But privately, every time I came up short, I lost a little bit of that sense that all children and young people deserve, that sense that I was capable of anything. I spent the last decade recovering from that.
…Yesterday, watching this young black boy from the projects, talking about his love of the Odyssey (and remembering how I devoured the Odyssey in tenth grade), and finishing up his apps to these venerable institutions, seeing all that’s really out there, it was a reminder of all that is really out there, and how much work I have to do on behalf of my own son.
Are elite schools the real answer to equality? Or do they only amplify class differences? All public schooling should provide the breadth of opportunity – it’s more important to spend money on decreasing the student-teacher ratio than on high tech.
I took Coates’s blog as a personal comment more than a systemic one. As a matter of public policy though, you’re right. But when it comes to personal choice, I don’t fault a Dad from Harlem trying to get his kid a scholarship to an elite school. In fact, I think it’s beautiful.