This American Life

This Week on "This American Life"

Episode 562: The Problem We All Live With

Jul 31, 2015

Right now, all sorts of people are trying to rethink and reinvent education, to get poor minority kids performing as well as white kids. But there's one thing nobody tries anymore, despite lots of evidence that it works: desegregation. Nikole Hannah-Jones looks at a district that, not long ago, accidentally launched a desegregation program. First of a two-part series. 

 

I spent an hour listening to this podcast, and then another hour listening again, and was devastated, then inspired, then enraged, then agitated...It's great storytelling, I think; but more than that, it's an important gut-check on where we are.  And where we need to go.

There are moments--particularly the soundbites from the parents wanting to keep black kids out of 'their' schools--when I wanted to turn it off.  It was just too painful and damning.  But, in the end, Nikole Hannah-Jones makes such a persuasive case: for good schools, for all kids, for integrated education.  It's worth your time.