We’re back in a new school year, and I’m struck by how let down Black and brown students and communities have been in recent years.
Let me explain.
Promises were made to Black and brown children during the pandemic. As the deadly virus tore through Black and brown communities at higher and more lethal rates, as our school stood closed longer, our learning more disrupted, there were both implicit and explicit promises that we would learn, grow, improve, and do better by and for Black and brown children.
Phrases like innovation were even uttered, then thinking better of it, whispered.
As money poured into our public schools, money that was absolutely essential, there was a belief in the possible, material evidence that perhaps change was in the offing. Perhaps public education (traditional and charters) would indeed become more responsive to the needs of Black and brown children, families, and communities. Perhaps, once all the dust settled, public schools that had long existed as under-resourced, rigid institutions would adapt and align with the interests and needs of our communities.
Four years later, public schools and the broader education system, instead of evolving as promised, appear as rigid and unchanged as ever, leading to palpable disillusionment, declining trust, and disengagement among students and families.
Quitting on the job wasn't just a work phenomenon. Students were enrolled in schools but also chose to quit.
The pandemic was a moment of reckoning. Leaders vowed to rethink and reshape education to be more flexible, inclusive, relevant, and individualized. As students and parents alike navigated the challenges of remote instruction and asynchronous learning, a brighter tomorrow when schools reopened was outright being promised.
That brighter tomorrow never materialized and now Black and brown communities rightly can’t help feeling, “Y’all lied to us.”
Contrary to the narrative at the time that our education system was fragile and would need to be rebuilt from the ground up after the pandemic, it has proven to be durable, enduring, rigid, and resistant to change. Despite generational learning declines, loss of more than a million lives, and a student (and adult) mental health and well-being crises, the same structures, curriculum, and teaching methods that existed before the pandemic remain intact, churning along as ever, too often grinding our youth’s aspirations to dust.
The result of that calcified reality is that more students and families are opting out.
If the system won’t change when our kids and communities so clearly suffer, why should our kids and families stay put?
They aren’t.
The failure to deliver on the promises made during the pandemic has led to a growing trend of students and families opting out of public education. These decisions are a direct response to disillusionment with a system that has refused to meet the needs and expectations of its students.
Homeschooling has exploded in the wake of the pandemic. More than 2 million students are now learning at home. Local school districts are seeing substantial and persistent enrollment declines. There are about a million fewer students enrolled in public schools now than prior to the pandemic.
Black and brown students, along with Native American students, saw the biggest disconnections from school. At the height of the pandemic, 1 in 5 Black teens and nearly 1 in 4 Native American teens were neither in education nor employed. That level of disconnection has moderated, but remains disproportionate and stubbornly high.
The narrative of fragility has been used to justify inaction and maintain the status quo. This rigidity is not just a failure; it’s a betrayal.
The return to “normal” after the pandemic was never about building something better—it was a return to the same old system, exposing the lie that meaningful change was ever intended. Communities of color have long been promised a truly equitable and responsive education, only to be denied again and again.
Hand-wringing and sad singing about all the kids not showing up? It’s because kids are opting out.
We must stop pretending the system is fragile and start demanding the transformative changes that were promised. The failure to change is a fundamental breach of trust with the students and families it serves, particularly in Black and brown communities. And until real change is made, students and families will continue to be absent or to simply opt out, seeking education that truly serves their needs and aspirations.