09/22/2026
BLACK CHILDREN CANNOT WAIT FOR THE SYSTEM TO BECOME FAIR.
I read Nikole Hannah-Jones’s deeply personal New York Times essay, “In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?” with empathy, professional concern and a complicated sense of recognition.
Her vulnerability deserves acknowledgment. It takes courage to examine your decisions as a mother and publicly confront the possibility that your deeply held values came at a cost to your child.
Her story also raises a larger question:
Why are Black families being asked to choose between academic rigor and racial belonging in the first place?
No individual family created these conditions, and no individual family can repair them. A child’s opportunities should not depend on how much money, time, information or institutional knowledge their family possesses.
But children are living inside this unequal system right now.
As a Black educator, Bronx Science alumna and founder of AdmissionSquad, I have spent 10 years helping Black and Brown families navigate New York City’s school system. I believe another part of this conversation must also be heard.
A child can earn A’s, make the honor roll and still be profoundly underprepared.
In the essay, Ms. Hannah-Jones discovered that her daughter had earned an A in Algebra while still having significant gaps in fractions, long division and other foundational skills. Her daughter believed she understood the material because her grades told her she did.
The truth did not emerge until she entered a more academically demanding environment.
That stopped me in my tracks.
Grades alone do not always tell parents whether their children are mastering grade-level content. A child can appear successful within one school while remaining unprepared for opportunities beyond it.
But there was another part of this story that I remembered immediately.
In March 2023, Ms. Hannah-Jones publicly shared that her daughter and several Black friends had enrolled in SHSAT preparation. After researching how few Black students were admitted to the specialized high schools, the girls decided there was no point in continuing.
They concluded that they would not get in.
Two days later, I reached out through AdmissionSquad.
I introduced myself as a Black Bronx Science graduate, mathematics educator and founder of a program that had already helped hundreds of Black and Brown students prepare for specialized and screened high schools.
I offered to speak with the girls.
I wanted them to meet a Black woman who had attended one of those schools. I wanted them to know that the statistics revealed an unequal system, but did not determine their individual futures.
I also shared our Top NYC High Schools List because specialized high schools are not the only path to an excellent education.
I did not receive a response.
I cannot know whether my message was seen or why it went unanswered, and I will not speculate.
I also cannot claim that one conversation would have changed the outcome.
But the support existed then, and it exists now.
Black educators, mentors and community organizations are identifying academic gaps, preparing students, guiding parents and creating pathways into rigorous schools.
That work deserves to be part of this conversation.
This year, 4,023 students received specialized high-school offers. Only 140 were Black.
At Stuyvesant, only three of 777 offers went to Black students.
Those numbers are devastating.
But five Black boys from AdmissionSquad earned specialized high-school offers this year. Their offers included Bronx Science, the High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College, and the High School of American Studies at Lehman College.
Their success does not prove that the system is fair.
It demonstrates that Black talent exists everywhere, including in children whom the system has not adequately prepared to display it.
I have never believed the answer is lowering expectations for our children.
The answer is raising access.
We can demand systemic reform while assessing children honestly, providing academic enrichment and supplementing what their schools are not providing.
We can fight for excellent schools for every child while helping families understand and pursue the strongest options available right now.
Preparation is not a substitute for educational justice. It is a bridge children can use while we continue fighting for justice.
Our children should not have to wait another generation.
They deserve qualified teachers.
They deserve rigorous instruction.
They deserve honest assessments of what they know.
They deserve racial belonging and academic excellence.
They deserve access to specialized high schools, screened schools and every other strong educational option.
They deserve adults who refuse to let discouraging statistics become instructions not to try.
I wrote a fuller response for parents, educators and community leaders about what this essay reveals and what families can do right now.
Read “Black Children Cannot Wait for Educational Equity”:
https://admissionsquad.org/blog/2026/9/22/black-children-cannot-wait-for-educational-equity
Talent is everywhere.
Opportunity should be too.
What Nikole Hannah-Jones’s story reveals about school choice, academic preparation and the options Black families deserve to know exist On March 30, 2023, I saw a Twitter (X) post that I could not forget. Nikole Hannah-Jones shared that her daughter’s school was offering tutoring for the Special...
