The 1619 Project debate gets more concrete in D.C.: one writer says his son attended a local Title I public elementary school from pre-K through fifth grade, and the choice worked well for his family. His son now goes to their locally zoned middle school, and the father says that path fit their household better than private school tuition or moving to the suburbs.
He draws a sharp line with Nikole Hannah-Jones, saying he disagrees with her about a lot of issues even as he found her recent piece about her regrets over sending her daughter to her poor-performing local public school extremely well-written, emotionally affecting, and honest. That disagreement is the point of the response: not to replay the school-choice argument in the abstract, but to show what one family actually got from staying put.
D.C. school choice and Kate
From pre-K through fifth grade, his son spent his elementary years in a school that was 47 percent Black, 20 percent Hispanic, and 22 percent English language learners. The school was even less white when he started there. He says Kate made structurally similar choices with their son’s education, which makes the family’s decision less like a one-off and more like a deliberate household judgment about what kind of school would serve their child.
He is not arguing that every affluent parent should copy that path without thinking. He says the actual details of schools that serve high-need populations vary quite a lot, and his point is that blanket skepticism about inner-city schools skips over the fact that some of them can be solid places for a child and useful ones for a broader school community. The choice, in his telling, was not simply about ideology; it was about comparing a local public school with private tuition or a suburban move and deciding the downsides were minor by comparison.
Title I at 47 percent Black
The school primarily serves low-income families, and he does not pretend that makes everything easy. Many of the children have difficult home lives and discipline problems at school, which is the complication at the center of his argument: the same building that worked for his son also had to carry a heavier load than a more affluent school would.
Still, he describes it as a well-run, happy place for his child. He also says his son learned to navigate a much broader range of social interactions than he would have if he had gone only to school with other affluent children, and that a critical mass of affluent, educated, engaged parents made a real difference in the lives of teachers and students.
What D.C. parents weigh
That is the practical question underneath the 1619 Project discussion: whether affluent urban parents should treat local public schools as a default failure or as one option among several, with real tradeoffs attached. He says it would be a shame if every affluent urban parent of a toddler decided they needed to flee to the suburbs, because that would leave fewer engaged families inside the schools that need stability most.
His own experience suggests a narrower conclusion. A family can choose a Title I school, see benefits for its own child, and still recognize that the school is carrying the burdens of the community it serves. The writer’s case is strongest where it is most specific: in D.C., in a school that was 47 percent Black, with Kate making a similar family decision, and with a son who made it from pre-K through fifth grade before moving on to the locally zoned middle school.
