Controversy Surrounds 1619 Project Creator’s Education Choices

The author of the New York Times’ contentious 1619 Project purposefully enrolled her daughter in underperforming public schools in New York City, viewing it as a “sacrifice” to aid in reforming the local education system.

However, her daughter is now extremely frustrated and lagging academically compared to peers who were accepted into a more challenging high school, a situation she expressed in a revealing essay.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, 50, placed her only child in two poorly-rated Brooklyn schools starting in 2015, aiming to address what she described as entrenched racism in education. She noted that, despite her ability to secure a spot in one of the city’s top schools given her “connections and status,” she chose otherwise, as she shared in a recent piece for the Times Magazine.

Hannah-Jones has enjoyed a good education herself and has financial stability — having purchased a $1.5 million brownstone in Bed-Stuy in 2018 — and yet she sacrificed her daughter’s educational experience to advocate for the improvement of conditions for Black students in the schools.

From her perspective, Hannah-Jones’ daughter Najya feels cheated by her parents’ choices.

During a particularly intense argument, she questioned, “So you had money to send me to one of the best schools, and you chose not to?” She further challenged her mother’s reasoning by saying, “Because other kids are disadvantaged, you didn’t want to put me in a great school?”

Hannah-Jones explained, “We thought by sending Najya to a mostly low-income and Black school, we could help improve it for all the children there.” She also believed that their decision would inspire similar families to do the same.

She described feeling a duty to make educational choices focused on the community’s needs rather than just their own personal benefits. But, after years in these schools — PS 307 and Urban Assembly Unison — Hannah-Jones recognized that her bright daughter was unprepared for high school.

Najya expressed her anger at her family’s prioritization of communal needs over her own.

“Sometimes I wish instead of always thinking about other kids, you would have thought about me,” Najya told her mother after a confrontation over the summer. “I never really got the education I wanted.”

Hannah-Jones found herself agreeing, stating, “I feel like you got cheated,” and in her essay, she admitted that she might have “failed” her daughter.

“Najya was asking what I’d accomplished by not choosing the ‘best’ school for her,” she reflected. “Honestly, I don’t know. These days, I feel I failed both my values and my child.”

Hannah-Jones attended a less-than-stellar high school in Iowa before moving on to the prestigious University of Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

PS 307 had a 56% Black student body, with only 19% of students meeting state English standards in 2016, significantly lower than the city average. At Urban Assembly Unison, while the student body was 69% Black, only 40% met state standards by 2024, compared to 55% city-wide.

This detailed essay served as a follow-up to her 2016 article where she first detailed her decision to enroll Najya in Brooklyn public schools marked by severe segregation and limited resources. That piece gained significant attention and ignited national discussions about race in schools.

Fast forward a decade, and Najya found herself in schools so burdened that they stopped assigning homework or adequately supervising students. In a shocking moment during Najya’s 4th grade, Hannah-Jones realized that her daughter’s teachers had not graded her work, leaving her convinced she was excelling when she actually wasn’t. Najya’s math confidence was misplaced as her teacher wasn’t checking her responses, and her writing exhibited many uncorrected errors.

“I sat there silently, conjuring the image of my little girl thinking she was soaring in class when she was failing, and my devastation turned to hot rage,” the mother expressed.

Even amidst these feelings, Hannah-Jones continued enrolling Najya in public schools through 6th grade, though complaints emerged that diligent students were overlooked while disruptive behavior received more attention.

As high school approached, Najya discovered troubling online scores for her schools, leading to a heated argument with her mother.

“Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?” Najya demanded before Hannah-Jones explained her rationale.

Ultimately, once Najya was permitted to choose her own high school, she arrived only to find that teachers quickly identified her as lacking foundational skills, necessitating extensive personal tutoring for her to catch up.

This experience left Hannah-Jones questioning the convictions she had long championed, convictions she had imposed on her daughter to combat educational inequality.

“I wanted my child to see it from my perspective, to view her struggles as part of a lineage,” Hannah-Jones wrote. “I felt she was privileged enough to withstand some of the dysfunction that plagued her schools. But now, I was overwhelmed with regret. Najya deserved better. So did all the children. But she was my only child, and I had not protected her,” Hannah-Jones concluded.

The responses to her extensive essay varied widely. Some criticized Hannah-Jones for a decision that might have jeopardized her daughter’s future as a display of virtue-signaling.

Thomas Chatterton Williams from the Atlantic recounted a discussion with his own Black father about the essay, noting, “He was gobsmacked.”

Conversely, others applauded her for holding true to her principles in her effort to uplift her community.

One writer remarked, “There is nothing contemptible about living by your principles.” Another observed that while Hannah-Jones’ intentions were admirable, her analytical approach may have faltered; she believed the schools’ issues stemmed from a lack of funding and involvement — resources she could have provided.