In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?

Gift link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/magazine/ny-public-school...

> And nationally, schools in predominantly nonwhite districts receive $23 billion less in annual funding than their heavily white counterparts, according to a 2019 analysis by EdBuild [0].

As is typical for the NYT, their articles include carefully constructed misinformation. The methodology for that analysis [1] has two serious issues.

First, they don't include federal funding, which in 2023 was $120 billion [3], eclipsing the funding disparity. The Title I federal funding budget for 2026, which is specifically for low-income schools, is set to be $63 billion [3], all excluded from this analysis.

Second, "All of the revenue figures presented are cost-adjusted to convert per-pupil revenues into figures that account for variation in the purchasing power of a dollar across different regions." So because more whites live in the middle of nowhere where rent is cheap because nobody wants to go there and there are no economic opportunities, academics launder that into "higher PPP-adjusted school funding".

Correct for those, and you find that "on average, both Black and Latinx total per pupil expenditures exceed White total per pupil expenditures by $229.53 and $126.15, respectively. This is anticipated due to the strong relationship between race and poverty and the increased federal funding targeted toward students in districts with concentrated poverty." [4]

Finally, it should be noted that the US spends a lot per pupil - in PPP, according to the OECD, the US was #4 in the world in 2023 (year the data is from, not when the article as published) [5]. No matter how you slice it, you can't blame funding for poor school quality. Where "school quality" is usually a sneaky term to say student outcomes, as if swapping the students between two schools (all the students), you'd expect the students swapped to the "good" school to suddenly start performing, and the students in the "bad" school to have their grades tank and develop discipline problems.

Not that I ever expected the NYT to include such context with their misinformation.

[0] https://edbuildna.org/content/23-billion

[1] https://edbuildna.org/content/23-billion/methodology

[2] https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statisti...

[3] https://www.k12dive.com/news/house-committee-cut-federal-edu...

[4] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584198724...

[5] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-education-spending-p...

> So, like the generations of Black parents who came before us, Faraji and I felt an obligation to make educational decisions based on the collective good and not just our individual advantage.

> Did I Betray My Own?

I think “betray” is maybe too harsh, but Yes, you should have chosen in favor of your child's best interest. How can you doubt it?