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Digital journalism is as subject to fads as any other medium. Snarky fisking \u2014\u00a0responding to an article line-by-line \u2014 gave way to the quiz boom, which was consumed by the personal essay before the long decade of short-form video. But if you squint, you can see the outline of the type of stuff that always works.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gossipy reported pieces on scams and relationships, such as the latest news about Donald Trump\u2019s aide Natalie Harp<\/a> or The Cut\u2019s regular output, are always a safe bet. Fightstarters over ambiguous issues \u2014 the annual argument over \u201cBaby, It\u2019s Cold Outside<\/a>,\u201d the internet-breaking Dress, countless poorly written math equations on Facebook \u2014 are evergreen. Barring that, it never hurts to channel Helen Lovejoy from \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d: You won\u2019t go broke thinking about how we should all think of the children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Over the weekend, one such piece tore through the well-meaning liberal corners of the internet \u2014 meaning Bluesky and Threads, mostly \u2014 and prodded at the gap between educational idealism and the hyper-competitive reality of schooling in America.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In a <\/span>column<\/span><\/a> for the New York Times Magazine titled \u201cIn Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?\u201d, Nikole Hannah-Jones agonizes over her decision to walk the walk with regard to her belief in robust, well-funded public schools<\/a> for all children. The journalist made the decision to send her child to a Brooklyn public school whose student body was predominantly Black and impoverished, believing that her well-resourced family could help push for better education for all the city\u2019s children from within. She wrestled with the struggles her daughter faced while trying to get ahead and deciding to test into one of New York\u2019s ultra-selective specialized public high schools.<\/span><\/p>\n In her column, Hannah-Jones grapples with the ways underfunded schools leave even talented students feeling pre-emptively defeated \u2014 a sense that the city\u2019s elite schools are beyond their grasp, even if their own test scores might indicate otherwise. Overworked and burnt-out staff teaching the children of overworked and burnt-out adults isn\u2019t a recipe for educational success, and Hannah-Jones\u2019 recollection of her repeated frustrations and conversations with educators paints a heartbreaking picture of a systemic issue that no one family could reverse. She makes herself sick with guilt over her choices, reaching out to activists and her daughter\u2019s former educators to help her make sense of the problem and her response to it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But Hannah-Jones is ultimately unsuccessful. As the principal of her daughter\u2019s struggling middle school puts it, \u201cthere\u2019s no model out there for holding all of these truths, these complex truths, all at once.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are working within the system that we know is not working, while trying to recreate and reimagine a new system, while working with young people who have all this potential, who\u2019ve not been given the opportunities for that potential to thrive and be unleashed,\u201d the educator says.<\/span><\/p>\n In the end, Hannah-Jones\u2019 daughter succeeded against the odds, landing in a great test-in school. But it\u2019s hard to come away from her story believing that such a result would be attainable for others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But the dilemma pokes at what has long been a sore spot for well-heeled liberals. Does sending your child to the best possible schools make believers in a better world for all big, fat hypocrites?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Once the column hit the web, it quickly devolved into a fight over whether wanting the best for your child is a betrayal of egalitarian ideals. Hannah-Jones is a gifted writer, and her piece isn\u2019t as flat as that argument implies. But the dilemma pokes at what has long been a sore spot for well-heeled liberals. Are the exceptions that every parent would make for their child morally permissible? Does sending your child to the best possible schools make believers in a better world for all big, fat hypocrites?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ll let you in on another bit of digital journalism that always holds true: Questions explored in commentaries are either unanswerable or the answer is \u201cno.\u201d We should have well-funded schools for all American children, where success isn\u2019t so tied to where you call home and the relative affluence of your neighbors. We don\u2019t, though and kids only get one shot at raising their children.<\/span><\/p>\n Like Hannah-Jones and her husband, I was the product of well-funded public schools. Private school was never an option for my working-class parents, but living close to the vacation homes of wealthy people boosted the quality of public schooling. The coastal county where I was raised is even wealthier and more populous now, but Florida\u2019s <\/span>rightward turn to school choice<\/span><\/a>, along with a post-COVID <\/span>crackdown on classroom<\/span><\/a> curriculums that <\/span>might be deemed \u201cwoke,\u201d<\/span><\/a> has left those <\/span>same public schools poorer<\/span><\/a> and its teachers less free to do their jobs. The state is currently in the midst of a <\/span>property tax revolt<\/span><\/a> that may further gut local school funding. A rabble-rousing, union-advocating teacher friend of mine came out of the same public schools as me, and she now teaches at a private school, primarily to pay for the discounted tuition her daughter receives.<\/span><\/p>\n Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter<\/a>, Standing Room Only,<\/em> written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ll soon have skin in this debate myself. I\u2019m expecting my first child at the end of this year, and if I didn\u2019t live hundreds of miles away from Florida, I would be looking into the academies, charters and parochial schools that serve the county\u2019s booming population of wealthy remote workers trying to pull the ladder up behind them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n