By focusing on school system beneficiaries rather than those who are disadvantaged, Chana Joffe-Walt’s new series models a powerful way of covering education inequality.

By Alexander Russo

Over the last few days, the political right has been in an uproar over Nice White Parents, the podcast reported and hosted by Chana Joffe-Walt that premieres today via Serial and the New York Times.

“Disintegrationists are now claiming that if you are a good parent who wants to educate your child in the best possible way, you are inherently racist because you are exacerbating racial inequality,” tweeted Ben Shapiro. “This holds only if you are white.”

The response is perhaps understandable, given the show’s inflammatory name and promotional copy blaring that “if you want to understand what’s wrong with our public education system, you have to look at what is arguably the most powerful force in our schools: White parents.”

However, progressive parents are the ones who should feel targeted. They’re the ones being scrutinized. To understand why American schools are so broken and uneven, as Joffe-Walt reports it, we have to look closely at the beneficiaries of the system, those who make and shape the rules, whose preferences influence policy and worry politicians — and those who have the option to move or pay for private school if they are not pleased.

In big cities like New York City, the “nice white parents” are likely to be liberal.

In big cities like New York City, the “nice white parents” are likely to be liberal.

Put simply, Nice White Parents tells the story of how ostensibly liberal white parents in New York City have been a major obstacle to integrating schools since at least the 1960s.

In the first of five episodes, Joffe-Walt focuses on a group of relatively affluent white parents in Brooklyn who in 2015 decide to enroll their kids in one neighborhood middle school, IS293, the School for International Studies. Almost immediately, they disrupt things with their high-powered fundraising efforts, French dual immersion programs, and general disregard for the preexisting school community of mostly Black and brown people.

Along the way, Joffe-Walt introduces us to well-meaning but oblivious parents and some sweaty 11-year-old kids who seem to think they’re rescuing their new school. And she takes us to awkward PTA meetings and then, ultimately, a fancy fundraising gala in Manhattan, where we meet an assortment of cringe-inducing characters who all seem to think they’re doing something noble.

The second episode goes back to the 1960s, when the school was first being conceived. Joffe-Walt finds letters from white parents who wrote to the Department of Education lobbying for the new school to be located in a place that would encourage integration — only to ignore the school in favor of other options when they got their way. And she tracks down some of the letter writers to see what they have to say, looking back.

Some moved to the suburbs. Others sent their kids to private schools. Joffe-Walt tells us there was an expansion of private school offerings during the 1960s when integration was on the front burner in NYC — schools that had been derided as “segregation academies” when they sprouted up in the South in the aftermath of the Brown decision.

In a particularly delicious and awkward series of interviews, Joffe-Walt presses parents who ultimately chose other schools to reflect on their decisions. She challenges them when their answers don’t make sense, and asks them frankly about racial fears and coded language they use to describe the school, such as “chaos” and “disruptive.” She also reflects on her own naivete, sending her children to a nominally integrated school where Black and brown kids experience a substantially different education.

Joffe-Walt presses parents to reflect on their decisions. She challenges them when their answers don’t make sense, and asks them frankly about racial fears and coded language they use. 

 

Nice White Parents also offers a critique of media coverage that has been woefully inadequate and likely contributed to long-term segregation and inequality.

In the second episode, Joffe-Walt points out how little coverage the 500,000-student one-day Freedom Day boycott of schools to demand integration got in February 1964. “Half a million kids stayed home that day,” she notes, making the event larger than the March on Washington. “But the press barely covered it.”

What little coverage was provided of the event raised the possibility of violence. “After searching every major TV network, I found only one kid who was interviewed,” she says.  But the student isn’t asked about why he’s there, she notes. “Do you expect violence here today?” asks the reporter.

And when white parents mounted their own, much smaller counterprotests against small-scale integration plans, the media response is disproportionate. “The white parents were far fewer in number, but as far as I can tell, they got a thousand times more press coverage,” says Joffe-Walt, which contributed to the board’s retreat on integration.

The failure to cover Black and brown protests appropriately, the focus on violence, and the over-coverage of white concerns are not new concerns. The under-coverage of the Freedom Day protest was featured in Matt Delmont’s important 2016 book, and featured in WNYC’s segment on the much-forgotten event.

However, concerns about media coverage are especially timely and important, given the current push for integration in NYC schools and other parts of the country and the immediate concerns about worsening inequality as an indirect result of the pandemic.

Then as now, high-quality media coverage of racial inequality has proven to be a struggle for education journalists and others. Journalism that questions the priorities and actions of white parents who believe themselves to be deeply invested in the public schools results in an almost immediate defensive response. But that is exactly what makes the first two episodes of Joffe-Walt’s series so unusual and powerful: Its willingness to focus on those who create and perpetuate an inequitable school system, often justifying it as a critical decision for their children. In this regard, the series is a model for how education journalists could — should, really — interrogate white behavior in the education system rather than focusing on vulnerable kids and communities who bear the brunt of others’ interests.

Then as now, high-quality media coverage of racial inequality has proven to be a struggle for education journalists and others. 

 

As I have written in the past, there are many obstacles to covering white parents’ roles in public education. The people who enjoy privilege rarely want to be made uncomfortable, much less held accountable. They are savvy and cynical enough to decline to participate or limit access. And those of us who look like them or have done some of the same things our subjects are doing may feel uncomfortable asking hard questions.

The 2018 documentary series America to Me took some important steps toward examining white stakeholders’ experiences, but the filmmakers were limited by their inability to gain participation from more than one of the white families at the school. In a review of the series author and professor L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy noted a glaring absence of “the voices and experiences of white students and families who accrue the spoils” of suburban school life.

By comparison, Nice White Parents focuses mainly on the people in power, questioning their actions and words, and holding them accountable. The white and privileged — including Joffe-Walt — are squarely in the spotlight. Some might object, noting that Black and brown parents and students are relegated to secondary status. But it’s white parents’ decisions that have helped perpetuate the inequality, and so it makes sense for Joffe-Walt to go to them for answers, at least so far.

There are many other aspects of the show to admire. The multiple interviews with school administrators, parents, and students illustrate the amazing access won by Joffe-Walt. The PTA meetings and gala fundraisers are delightful bits of field reporting. There are some great interviews with students reflecting on what is essentially the gentrification of the school. And Joffe-Walt, who serves as host and guide on the series, does a remarkable job interpreting and unpacking what’s happening and being said.

But the decision to focus attention on those whom the status quo advantages is the series’ standout feature, and its greatest advantage. Nice White Parents takes us into school tours, parent meetings, and the feelings of parents who chose the school and want to make it better for their children. In this regard, it is a promising new model for writing about racial inequality that I hope more reporters will consider.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexander Russo

Alexander Russo

Alexander Russo is founder and editor of The Grade, an award-winning effort to help improve media coverage of education issues. He’s also a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship winner and a book author. You can reach him at @alexanderrusso.

Visit their website at: https://the-grade.org/