1: The Book of Statuses

Nice White Parents

Serial Productions & The New York Times

Society & Culture, Education

4.1 • 25.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2020

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A group of parents take one big step together.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Nice White Parents is brought to you by Cereal Productions, a New York Times company.
0:06.2	I started reporting this story at the very same moment as I was trying to figure out my
0:10.5	own relationship to the subject of this story.
0:13.8	White Parents in New York City Public Schools, I was about to be one of them.
0:18.6	When my kid was old enough, I started learning about my options, Ed Manny.
0:23.6	There was a zoned public school in Brooklyn, or I could apply to a handful of specialty
0:28.6	programs, a gifted program, or a magnet school, or a language program.
0:34.1	So I started to look around.
0:35.8	This was five years ago now, but I vividly remember these tours.
0:40.2	I'd show up in the lobby of the school at the time listed on the website, look around,
0:46.0	and notice that all or almost all of the other parents who had shown up for the 11 a.m.
0:50.7	middle of the work day early in the shopping season school tour were other white parents.
0:56.7	As a group, we'd walk the halls, following a school administrator, almost always a man
1:01.7	or woman of color, through a school full of black and brown kids.
1:06.4	We'd peer into classroom windows, watch the kids sit in a circle on the rug, ask questions
1:11.9	about the lunch menu, homework policy, discipline, some of us would take notes.
1:17.8	And the administrators would sell.
1:20.7	The whole thing was essentially a pitch.
1:23.4	We offer STEM.
1:24.6	We have a partnership with Lincoln Center.
1:26.6	We have a dance studio.
1:28.6	They were pleading with us to please take part in this public school.
	...

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