Nice White Parents

About this podcast

If you want to understand what’s wrong with our public schools, you have to look at what is arguably the most powerful force in shaping them: white parents. A five-part series from Serial Productions, a New York Times Company. Hosted by Chana Joffe-Walt.

Nice White Parents

Episodes

Season 1
5: ‘We Know It When We See It’
Chana has traced the history of the school from its founding and come to the present. But now: One unexpected last chapter. Last year, the school district for BHS mandated a change in the zoning process to ensure all of middle schools will be racially integrated. No longer can white families hoard resources in a few select schools. Black and Latino parents have been demanding this change since the late 1950s. The courts have mandated it. Chana asks: How did this happen? And is this a blueprint for real, systemic change?
August 20, 2020
53 min
4: 'Here’s Another Fun Thing You Can Do'
Public schools are inequitable because the school systems are maniacally loyal to white families. We can’t have equitable public education unless schools limit the disproportionate power of white parents. But is that even possible? Chana finds two schools that are trying to do just that, and both are actually inside the 293 building. One is downstairs in the basement, where a charter school called Success Cobble Hill opened about 7 years ago. The other is upstairs at BHS, the newly renamed SIS.
August 13, 2020
49 min
3: ‘This Is Our School, How Dare You?’
Chana Joffe-Walt explores how white parents can shape a school — even when they aren’t there. She traces the history of I.S. 293, now the Boerum Hill School for International Studies, from the 1980s through the modern education reforms of the 2000s. In the process, Chana talks to alumni who loved their school and never questioned why it was on the edge of a white neighborhood. To them, it was just where everyone went. But she also speaks to some who watched the school change over the years and questioned whether a local community school board was secretly plotting against 293.
August 6, 2020
46 min
2: 'I Still Believe in It'
Chana Joffe-Walt searches the New York City Board of Education archives for more information about the School for International Studies, which was originally called I.S. 293. In the process, she finds a folder of letters written in 1963 by mostly white families in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. They are asking for the board to change the proposed construction of the school to a site where it would be more likely to be racially integrated. It’s less than a decade after Brown v. Board of Education, amid a growing civil rights movement, and the white parents writing letters are emphatic that they want an integrated school. They get their way and the school site changes — but after that, nothing else goes as planned. For more information about this show, visit nytimes.com/nicewhiteparents
July 30, 2020
52 min
1: The Book of Statuses
It’s 2015 and one Brooklyn middle school is about to receive a huge influx of new students. In this episode, Chana Joffe-Walt, a reporter, follows what happens when the School of International Studies’ 6th grade class swells from 30 mostly Latino, Black and Middle Eastern students, to 103 — an influx almost entirely driven by white families. Everyone wants “what’s best for the school” but it becomes clear that they don’t share the same vision of what “best” means. For more information about this show, visit nytimes.com/nicewhiteparents
July 30, 2020
61 min
Introducing: Nice White Parents
A new limited series about building a better school system, and what gets in the way.
July 17, 2020
3 min

Nice White Parents

About this podcast

Categories

About this podcast

Categories

Nice White Parents

Episodes

5: ‘We Know It When We See It’

4: 'Here’s Another Fun Thing You Can Do'

3: ‘This Is Our School, How Dare You?’

2: 'I Still Believe in It'

1: The Book of Statuses

Introducing: Nice White Parents