Marlon Rice
Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
“I believe that all of us as parents are constantly looking to make decisions about where to put our kids, and there is this decision based on class and resources … Unfortunately, a lot of our parents in the district are not wealthy and so the options are not as vast. Many of them simply have to send their kids to zone schools because they don’t have the resources or opportunity to go outside of that … We find inequity when people without resources are forced to deal with the educational inequities of schools that are underfunded and underprepared.”
Rasheeda Brown Harris
The Bronx
“We definitely looked at a couple of private schools, but … I was not trying to put her in a school that would be predominantly white and not [have] a lot of Black kids … I wasn’t comfortable with any of that, so we stayed at a [Gifted & Talented] school, a K through 8 school.”
Leslie Ann Murray
East Flatbush, Brooklyn
“I think the question that should be discussed is why do we have so many divided, unequal schools? Why [are] our neighborhood and our tax dollars tied toward how our schools get funding? Why are Black and Brown kids from birth slated — this is a caste system — slated to do poor, slated to do bad, slated to not become something because of the educational system and where they were born … I hope this spurs us on not only thinking about the unequal system we’re in, but how do we change it and how do we create tangible change.”
Tanesha Grant
Harlem
“There should be a partnership between the family and schools, but I’ve never trusted a white-facing institution to educate my daughter on her Blackness. That’s why I’ve fought so hard for cultural responsiveness in schools.”
Dr. Shango A. Blake
Brooklyn
“I was taught by my parents, who were children of the Black Power movement, about Black empowerment and history. However, I grew up in Southeast Queens, and went to an integrated school. I ended up going to school in Bayside and … realized that things I was taught at home were not being validated in the classroom … so I want to push back against this concept that integration will solve everything.”
