# NYT Writer's School Choice Confession Splits Left and Right

- URL: https://twotakes.us/stories/nyt-writers-school-choice-confession-splits-left-and-right
- Published: 2026-09-28T07:08:13.321739+00:00
- Topics: education, school-choice, segregation, race, nikole-hannah-jones

## What the left says
- Wanting the best possible school for your own child does not invalidate a lifelong commitment to fighting for equitable, well-funded public education for all children.
- Hannah-Jones's essay is an honest, vulnerable reckoning with the painful gap between idealism and the pressures of raising a child inside a deeply unequal system, not a reversal of her politics.
- The system that forces parents to choose between their child's individual opportunity and collective equity is the actual failure, not any individual parent's decision within it.
- Personal struggles like this deserve empathy and nuance rather than being weaponized as a 'gotcha' against advocates for systemic reform.

## What the right says
- Hannah-Jones's own choice to seek out selective, higher-resourced schooling for her daughter reveals that even the strongest advocates for anti-choice, anti-selective policies don't actually trust those policies for their own children.
- The essay validates long-standing conservative arguments that meritocratic, selective schools and school choice programs help talented kids escape failing systems, rather than being tools of segregation.
- Progressive education politics often prioritize abstract racial-justice narratives over the concrete, individual needs of real students, including the children of the very advocates pushing those narratives.
- This moment exposes a broader hypocrisy among elite progressives who champion policies for other people's children that they would never accept for their own.

## Common ground
- Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote a New York Times Magazine essay reflecting on her decision to send her daughter to a predominantly Black, under-resourced Brooklyn public school before pursuing a selective specialized high school.
- The essay has sparked widespread debate across ideological lines about school choice, segregation, and educational equity.
- Both sides agree that under-resourced schools can leave talented students feeling discouraged or unable to compete for elite opportunities.
- Both sides recognize the tension parents face between personal responsibility for their children and broader commitments to systemic social change.

## Sources
- [Salon](https://www.salon.com/2026/09/24/trump-tv-is-the-end-of-an-era-for-the-king-of-ratings/) (Left)
- [AllSides](https://www.allsides.com/news/2026-09-23-0700/education-nikole-hannah-jones-experiment-accidentally-undercuts-her-case-against-school-choice) (Center)
- [AllSides](https://www.allsides.com/news/2026-09-23-0700/education-wanting-best-school-your-kid-doesnt-make-you-hypocrite) (Center)
- [AllSides](https://www.allsides.com/news/2026-09-23-0700/education-im-nyc-dad-heres-what-nikole-hannah-jones-got-so-wrong-about-our-public-schools) (Center)
- [National Review](https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/09/nikole-hannah-joness-daughter-is-not-the-only-victim/) (Lean Right)
- [RealClearPolitics](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2026/09/26/the_lefts_blind_spot_when_it_comes_to_schools_712164.html) (Center)
- [Salon](https://www.salon.com/2026/09/23/wanting-the-best-school-for-your-kid-doesnt-make-you-a-hypocrite/) (Left)

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