Najya Hannah-Jones Challenges Parents' School Choice Decision
A 16-year-old's questioning of her family's decision to leave neighborhood schools for a charter academy highlights the complex trade-offs.
Najya Hannah-Jones, 16, challenged her parents' education choice after attending neighborhood schools that affirmed her identity but left academic gaps. Her family's experience in Newark's South Ward shows the tension between community-rooted schools and charter alternatives like KIPP Spark Academy.
The parent's educational dilemma and decision
Living in Newark's South Ward, the author and his wife sought schools that were safe, affirming, and academically rigorous for their children. The neighborhood schools reflected deep residential segregation and historical disinvestment. They were characterized by administrative incompetence, a lack of rigorous curricula, ineffective instruction, and insufficient performance-based accountability. The parents wanted their children to attend schools that reflected their community, affirmed their identity, and prepared them for their highest aspirations.
Choosing KIPP Spark Academy and its impact
The author chose KIPP Spark Academy for their children. The academy's student population reflected the residentially segregated reality of the community. There, the children were loved, pushed, and educated by teachers who believed in them. Najya Hannah-Jones later reflected on this choice, saying, "There’s other options."
The broader case for high-performing charters
Network-operated charter schools like KIPP produce significant academic gains and improved college outcomes for Black and Latino students. A Stanford study found Black students in such schools gained the equivalent of 41 additional days of learning in reading and 47 in math compared to peers in traditional public schools.
| Student Group | Comparison | Additional Days in Reading | Additional Days in Math |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black students | Network charters vs. Traditional public schools | 41 | 47 |
| Hispanic students | Network schools vs. Stand-alone charter schools | 22 | 30 |
A National Bureau of Economic Research study using randomized admissions lotteries found urban charter attendance increased test scores and four-year college enrollment. A Mathematica study found attending both KIPP middle and high school increased the likelihood of four-year college graduation within five years by approximately 19 percentage points. If replicated nationally, this effect could close the Black-white college-completion gap and nearly close the Latino-white gap.
What makes excellent schools work
Housing, funding, and political decisions have concentrated poverty and constrained opportunity in many neighborhood schools. While these systemic failures are real, they do not excuse schools from providing excellent teaching, rigorous coursework, and support for Black and Brown children. Resources and demographics alone do not determine school quality.
Building excellent schools requires hard work and disciplined execution with no shortcuts. A New York Times’s Upshot analysis ranked small-group tutoring and evidence-based reading instruction as most effective for improving student achievement. It also identified high-quality curricula, expanded access to advanced courses, teacher coaching, and school accountability as promising strategies. No single intervention is enough; results depend on how well schools carry out strategies over time.
Strong charter networks combine proven practices, adapt to student needs, and develop educators and systems to sustain them. Schools must hire, retain, and develop talented teachers. They need rigorous curricula and reliable measures of student learning. Leaders must build strong cultures, engage families, identify gaps early, and hold adults accountable for results. These fundamentals are especially critical in schools serving children denied opportunity for generations.
Children get only one education and cannot wait for housing patterns to change or political consensus to emerge. High-performing public charter schools prove systemic barriers can be confronted while delivering results for students today. Every child deserves an excellent education.
