I shared the Nikole Hannah Jones story (#1579990) with my wife. For context: Nikole Hannah Jones is an uber-progressive who sent her daughter to crappy public schools for 10 years as an ideological statement. She recently wrote an article regretting those decisions because her daughter just transferred to a better school and found that her previous education was horrible.
Anyway, I shared the story with my wife, and her first reaction was: "Oh, they're just preparing their daughter's college narrative." It struck me like a bolt of lightning. I admit, I was feeling some degree of schadenfreude at the whole story... who doesn't like to dunk on wokesters?
But it hit me that my wife is absolutely right. The story has already travelled far and wide and the narrative is already out there that Hannah-Jones's daughter had a disadvantaged upbringing. Now, all they have to do is pay for some private tutoring to get her grades up to speed in high school and she has an easy-sell narrative to the colleges. Whichever college she ends up choosing would surely love to be part of this redemption arc too, given the publicity it's already received.
Man, these people scare me. My wife included.
Da da tsss
But isn’t she taking a gamble? What if her daughter’s grades don’t pick up in spite of extensive tutoring?
Do the Ivy League colleges really need to choose her to be associate favourably when they have the cream of the crop to choose from?
Interesting story for me!
I don't necessarily think she intended this at the start. But probably at some point they realized that this approach would be the strategic path forward.
My sense of American education, even at good schools, is that anyone can get a pretty good grade if they just put the effort in, especially with tutoring.
the Singapore system has put in place pathways for late bloomers to catch up with their peers academically - but I don’t think it would be easy for one to make significant leaps in his results if his foundation is weak. he usually has to take the longer educational route
My take on it was that Jones was simply using her daughter for content, they way too many writers (and even more Youtubers, really) do. But your wife may well be right (and even if it wasn't Jones's intent, it definitely seems like a possible outcome).
It's not hard to draw a line straight from "influencers" to yellow journalists. They're not that different.
My sense of Jones is that she doesn't get to where she is without being a real smooth operator. So my spidey senses tell me that this was probably intentional. The original decision to send her daughter to bad public schools may not have been this strategic, but writing about it publicly now could be the best recovery move.
Parents drop 12 year old kid off at an inner city crack house.
"See you in 10 years when you graduate from Harvard."
if it works, it works
It's been kind of an understood principle that most public schools (not all), don't do a good job in actual education in the US. As a result, parents who have the ability regardless of political stripe send their kids to private schools for better discipline, grades and ability to get into colleges. I literally remember being in one parent meeting discussing how the current system was not delivering what it was supposed to. One parent was a public school administrator and replied to me I was exagerrating. I then responded, "So, if I'm exagerrating, why the hell are you sending your kid to a private school as well?" He admitted the training was better.
I see lack of tools for discipline as part of the problem. Yes, education should be accessible for everyone, but if both the child and the parents have demonstrated that they don't want it, then that privilege can be taken away.