Our Kids First:
The Beautiful Lie of School Choice and Who We're Willing to Sacrifice
by Anne McGraw
We can pretend no one is being harmed by our family’s school choice. but it doesn’t take too long to think about it and realize that can’t be true.
So either people aren’t stopping to think about it, or they’re fine with that being the case. And unfortunately, there are a lot of people fine with just caring about their own.
This can’t be who we are in America. Or can it?
Every time one of us opts out of the public school system and chooses private or homeschooling, we’re hurting our own community and helping a billionaire in his mansion somewhere, lining other people’s pockets and leaving those without geographic or financial mobility behind.
While this will certainly make many defensive, we need to speak as plainly as possible: Parents are actively keeping racial and economic segregation alive in our cities and suburbs through their educational choices.
Absolutely no one is blaming you for wanting the absolute best for your own children. That’s literally your job, either right now if you already have kids or in the future if that’s a path you choose to take. You’ve been taught that it’s actually your duty to make these choices if they’re available to you, even if that isn’t the case for others.
The dirty little secret is that the system is working exactly as designed, to separate the haves from the have nots, to keep the playing field as uneven as possible so the poor stay poor. The entire American life is built on that separation. The people at the top of the food chain do not want us thinking about this, much less talking about it at book clubs or on social media.
And if you’re a white woman, I want you to lean in really closely when I say this part: It is very much our responsibility to fix this, and with a quickness. You have very real power here to help break down the divide between what Black and Brown Americans experience and what White Americans accept as their birthright, which in this case is a good K-12 education.
We all know there’s no greater force than a group of white moms with a project. This is not about us swooping in to save poor people, to do big, grand acts of charity or show up in matching t-shirts with bullhorns and buttonmakers.
It’s about us educating each other and banding together to make different choices in our neighborhoods. It’s about reclaiming our local schools and getting really pissed off that they’ve been defunded and left to wither, with teachers ultimately paying the price by having to scotch tape and active shooter drill their way through life to help those kids we’ve left behind.
If you’d like to join in as a supporter in expediting this for release in 2027, I invite you to visit my GoFundMe campaign.
Meet the Author
Photo Credit: Brooke Kelly
Anne McGraw lives in a Nashville suburb in Williamson County, Tennessee, one of the hotbeds of political extremist attacks on public education. In 2014, as a parent of 2 young girls at the time, she joined together with other parents who were fighting a Tea Party takeover of the School Board, and was appointed in 2015 to an open seat on the Williamson County School Board and won the election in 2016 to continue serving in that role for the duration of the term. It was the beginning of her fight against curriculum and book banning, censorship, inequitable policies, and funding disparities among schools within such a large district.
In 2021, she took over the reins of Williamson Strong, a parent-run social media community focused on school news and election topics, and formed a Political Action Committee (PAC) to further support the group’s efforts in getting pro-public education candidates elected to office. The hyperlocal group is now almost 7,000 strong and is highly engaged in fighting for educators and our children’s schools.
Her advocacy has been featured nationally and locally, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The 74, Tennessee Lookout, Fox 17 News and more. Her beginnings with Williamson Strong can be read about here.
Anne has 20+ years in corporate marketing and advertising and now works as a consultant across a variety of clients, specializing in digital and social media marketing. She and her husband, Ryan, have one daughter in college and one attending the local public high school. Her teachers - and teachers everywhere - are the unsung heroes of this story.
Why is this Needed Now?
You’re busy. If you’re a parent of school-aged kids or even younger, you’re REALLY BUSY. I’ve read a lot of really incredible books and done a deep dive into the topics that have shaped public education in America since its inception, and am going to condense it all for you so you don’t have to do the same (although really, I hope you do!) I’ll be sharing links and resources to so many incredible authors and experts on this subject, of which there are MANY.
A lot of this learning has to do with the racist foundation of our modern-day society that has set us up for outrageous inequalities in our school system. I’m sharing my own “a-ha” moments in a way that’s easy to digest, process, and learn from as well as my proposal on a somewhat simple solution to it all….send your kids to your local public school. No exceptions.*
*Who I’m not talking to and is not the target audience for this action plan:
Black and Brown families who are 100% supported in making any and every choice they think is best to keep their children and families safe, supported, and positioned for success in this American society hellscape.
Parents of special needs children who cannot get the necessary services needed in their zoned school and do not have the resources or the will to fight those battles on top of keeping their kids alive, well, and receiving any type of education at all.
What is the Parent Tax?
Public schools are woefully - and purposefully - underfunded no matter where in America you live. The difference between what people consider “good” or “bad” schools often comes down to one factor: Demographics. In wealthier, usually whiter, school districts, parents tend to have higher education levels and access to resources that poorer school districts can’t tap into: volunteer hours, PTOs, and money from both families themselves and their local communities and corporate sponsors.
Depending on where you live, it may have crossed your mind that our public schools are starting to look like NASCAR races with logos splashed around the buildings, fields, and even on team jerseys.
This is the Parent Tax in action, and some districts are able to pay it while others aren’t.
In Williamson County, Tennessee, parents and community members are pouring in an additional $14-16 MILLION DOLLARS a year to bridge the gap in what the county budget funds and what’s left behind, leaving families to fund basics like lawn mowing and landscaping, new teacher supplies, teacher professional development, technology, smartboards, copier paper, AP test fees, art supplies, recorders for music class, and sometimes even safety measures like bulletproof film for an elementary school’s exterior windows.
Beyond the financials, having parents who are engaged in their local school can make all the difference in culture and teacher appreciation. They organize teacher appreciation lunches, class parties, help chaperone field trips, decorate for the holidays, throw end of season sports team banquets, and go above and beyond to make sure their children’s school experience is excellent. They’re engaged with teachers, show up to Open House nights and school conferences, demand issue resolution (even when they shouldn’t), and are involved in the day to day work of their child’s education. They can drive their kids to school when the bus is overcrowded or has too long of a route. These are all luxuries.
A lot of parents don’t have extra time. Millions of American families are working multiple jobs just to make ends meet, with parents doing their best just to get their kids to school on time each day. Absenteeism and lack of classroom participation are the issues those teachers deal with, on top of escalating behavior issues (which are certainly not isolated to any singular demographic by all educator accounts) and cheating and cellphone issues.
The Parent Tax can only go so far, though, and even the rich districts are feeling the pain due to things like teacher shortages and extremist-driven policies, and are driven off to the fancier private schools that get to pick and choose who attends, dodging the IEP and 504 kids that require additional resources and making the environment as cushy as possible for their paying customers.
The Parent Tax is a band-aid only available for the wealthy who have the means to utilize it, and it contributes to the ongoing willfull segregation happening in our public school system.
Coming 2027 - Stay Tuned!
Coming 2027 - Stay Tuned!
Let’s Chat! Available for podcasts, interviews, background information, book clubs, or just to brainstorm ways to work on this issue together.