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I started reporting this story at the very same moment as I was trying to figure out my own relationship to the subject of this story

white parents in New York City public schools. I was about to be one of them. When my kid was old enough, I started learning about my options. I had many. There was our zoned public school in Brooklyn, or I could apply to a handful of specialty programs, a gifted program or a magnet school or a language program.

So I started to look around.

This was five years ago now, but I vividly remember these tours.

I'd show up in the lobby of the school at the time listed on the website,

look around, and notice that all or almost all of the other parents who'd shown up for the 11 a.m.

middle of the work day early in the shopping season school tour or other white parents.

As a group, we'd walk the halls following a school administrator, almost always a man or

woman of color, through a school full of black and brown kids.

We'd peer into classroom windows, watch the kids sit in a circle on the rug, ask questions about

the lunch menu, homework policy, discipline. Some of us would take notes. And the administrators would sell.

The whole thing was essentially a pitch.

We offer STEM.

We have a partnership with Lincoln Center.

We have a dance studio. They were pleading with us to please

...