Column: Neighborhoods, Communities, and Privilege

I live in Washington, D.C. My son attends a public pre-K program here in the city. So I spend a lot of time on area playgrounds listening to other parents explain their theories of how to improve the District’s public schools. After a few years of this, I’ve noticed an odd pattern: even in a city as liberal as D.C., these parents are overwhelmingly protective of policies that link school enrollment to the real estate market. That is, they are deeply committed to the notion that the mortgage they can afford should determine which schools their children attend. I’ve long found that position confusing, so I wrote a column at The 74 Million explaining why:

Too often, we treat the growing gulf between America’s rich and poor as a matter primarily of bank accounts. And sure,wealth redistribution will definitely be a big part of any solution. But we also need to address the ways that inequality reproduces itself through American policies and institutions.

That is, material capital (wealth) translates into social capital (privilege) through mechanisms built into how our system allocates resources. It’s not just that the rich have more stuff—it’s that we let them leverage their wealth to get even further ahead. If liberalism isn’t about disrupting those processes…what is it about?

This is particularly true as far as public education is concerned. Think about it. If you attended public K–12 schools (like me), you probably attended the ones that were assigned to families living in your neighborhood. This spring, Hillary Clinton’s campaign launch video even included a mom explaining, “My daughter is about to start kindergarten next year, and so we’re moving, just so she can belong to a better school.”

This system of school enrollment is American dogma.

And it works fine, of course, except for children whose families can’t afford to purchase a new house in a more expensive neighborhood where they can “belong to a better school.”

Click here to read the rest!“