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1619 Project Founder Regrets School Choice for Daughter, Admits Ideals Came First
Re1619 Project Founder Regrets School Choice for Daughter, Admits Ideals Came First
Nikole Hannah-Jones says she regrets sending her daughter to a predominantly Black, high-poverty Brooklyn public school, acknowledging in a new essay that her ideals took priority over her child's education. The admission has reignited debate over school choice and accountability in New York and nationally.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, the New York Times Magazine reporter who created the 1619 Project, has publicly acknowledged that she regrets sending her daughter to predominantly Black, high-poverty public schools in Brooklyn, New York. In a newly released New York Times Magazine essay, Hannah-Jones describes confronting a truth she says she could no longer suppress after her now-16-year-old daughter, Najya, told her she did not receive the education she wanted.
The admission marks a shift from the position Hannah-Jones took in a widely discussed 2016 essay, when she explained why she and her husband enrolled Najya at P.S. 307, a Brooklyn school that was then overwhelmingly Black and Latino and served a largely low-income population. At the time, she argued that middle-class families could help improve segregated schools by enrolling their children and investing in them. «I worried — I worry still — about whether I made the right decision for our little girl. But I knew I made the just one,» she wrote in 2016.
In the new essay, Hannah-Jones describes revisiting years of emails with her daughter's teachers and principals and confronting what she calls a truth she could no longer suppress. «Now I felt overcome with regret. Najya deserved better,» she writes. «They all did. But she was mine. This girl, my only child, looked to me to protect her, to give her what she needed to thrive. And I had not chosen her.» She also recounts apologizing to her daughter after reviewing problems that followed her through elementary and middle school. «I feel like you got cheated,» Hannah-Jones told her. «And I'm sorry for that.» Najya responded by telling her mother she wished her own education had received greater consideration alongside Hannah-Jones' broader concerns about educational inequality. «Sometimes I wish instead of always thinking about other kids, you would have thought about me. I never really got the education I wanted,» Najya said.
The essay details academic problems that became more apparent as Najya grew older. At Unison, her middle school, Najya earned strong grades and took honors courses, but later said she and her friends realized they were not being sufficiently challenged. Hannah-Jones describes limited homework, inexperienced teachers and gaps in her daughter's math preparation that became especially apparent after Najya entered a more academically demanding high school. Unison Principal Emily Paige acknowledged in the essay that some attempts to accommodate students who entered the school academically behind had unintended consequences, including the decision to eliminate homework. «It is important to not, in our pursuit of being antiracist, lower expectations,» Paige said. «Because this is what happens, right? It's racism under the guise of antiracism.»
Hannah-Jones told Fox News Digital on Sunday that the broader focus should remain on families who lack the resources to pursue better educational options for their children. «I hope people concerned about the choice my husband and I made for our daughter will have equal or more outrage for the thousands of Black children whose parents don't have the resources to send them to better schools,» she said. «As I write in the piece, there is no absolution to be had for any of us.»
Corey DeAngelis, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and longtime school choice advocate, responded to the essay in a statement, arguing parents should prioritize their children's individual educational needs. «Parents should put their children first. They should not sacrifice them to a failing government school system in the name of ideology,» DeAngelis said. «Nikole Hannah-Jones now says she regrets putting her ideals ahead of her daughter's education. That admission is long overdue.» He added: «I welcome Nikole Hannah-Jones to the school choice revolution. Maybe she will start to understand that pulling her daughter from the failing school system would have done more to improve those schools — through competition — than the status quo ever did. You don't fix public schools by locking kids in them without any accountability. You fix them by giving them a reason to change their ways.» DeAngelis also told Fox News Digital that Hannah-Jones' experience should lead her to support policies allowing education funding to follow children to schools selected by their families. «Hannah-Jones can afford better options. Most families cannot,» he said. «She should fight for the funding to follow the student so more parents have the same educational opportunities she can buy for herself. School choice is an equalizer.»
The debate comes as school choice remains an active issue in New York. Teachers' unions have been opposing Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's plan to participate in a federal tax-credit scholarship program designed to help families pay for educational options outside their assigned schools. The New York Times' 1619 Project is a long-form collaboration that seeks to reframe the country's history by bringing slavery and racism to the forefront of the national narrative.
