New York Times Teases Podcast Blaming ‘Nice White Parents’ For Flawed Education System

The New York Times will release a five-part podcast series July 30 titled “Nice White Parents,” which will investigate the impact white parents have on America’s “failing” public schools.

“We know that American public schools do not guarantee each child an equal education — two decades of school reform initiatives have not changed that. But when we look at how our schools are failing, we usually focus on who they’re failing: Black and brown kids. We ask: Why aren’t they performing better? Why aren’t they achieving more?” the statement asks.

Those are the wrong questions , according to the release, which continues, “If you want to understand what’s wrong with our public education system, you have to look at what is arguably the most powerful force in our schools: White parents.”

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Hosted by Chana Joffe-Walt, “Nice White Parents” will explore, “the 60-year relationship between White parents and the public school down the block,” according to the statement.

Included in the statement is a short teaser episode where Joffe-Walt talks about the beginning of racial integration in 1963. White parents in New York City lobbied their government to build a new school in their neighborhood, Joffe-Walt explained, but when the school was finally finished, not one of their children attended.

Joffe-Walt interviewed several of those white parents, asking them why they didn’t send their kids to the school they lobbied so hard for.

“I don’t want to sacrifice my child to it,” said one mother.

“I think that we say a lot of things that are politically correct, without even realizing that we are not telling exactly how we feel, ” said another mother.

“For years, I’ve been looking for an answer for the question ‘Why don’t public schools work better? What is getting in the way of giving each child an equal opportunity, an equal education,” Joffe-Walt said.

“But now, I think I’ve been looking in the wrong places for what’s broken in our schools,” Joffe-Walt adds, “I think you can’t understand what’s broken if you don’t look here, at one of the most powerful forces shaping public education: White parents.”