This American Life--The Problem We All Live With--Part One, Nikole Hannah Jones

    

    This author argues that integration is the only thing that works to cut the achievement gap between black and white students.  This is evidenced in the conceptual framework.  Jones did not know if the gap would have been eliminated totally, but felt it would have been close to elimination.  Over the years many changes have taken place throughout school systems to balance or equalize the educational playing field between black and white students.  Some of these changes include:  improving literacy, designing charter and magnet schools, improving the quality of teachers, replacing the principals and superintendents and "The No Child Left Behind Act."  Despite these changes, an educational divide still exists.  Although desegregation programs are a blast from the past, Jones speaks of the Normandy School system that unintentionally started a school desegregation approximately six years ago. 

     Jones has personal experience with school desegregation since she was a product of this system.  Jones did not understand that she and her sister were part of a desegregation program until as an adult she started researching and writing about education as an investigative reporter for the New York Times.  She reflects how she was told to get on the bus and go to school and she passively went where the bus took her which was to a white school across town.  Jones speaks of how it was hard to be taken out of her very black working class community by a long bus ride for which she woke up early to a wealthy white community for school.  She speaks of the social difficulty of feeling like she never belonged despite having friends. She could go to their house but they couldn't come to hers.  Jones know from her own life that integration works and changes ones life.  It has effects that change ones whole life.  One is less likely to be poor and less likely to have health problems.  

     Listening to the interview between Jones, Nedra Martin and her daughter Mah Ria Martin was enjoyable.  It made the lack of quality education in the Normandy Schools and the concept of integration come to life.  The strength of both Nedra and her daughter Mah Ria was endless.  They faced many hurdles together, but overcame them much like the plight of Ruby Bridges.

     Listening to Leslie McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, grieve for her son aloud on the broadcast brought not only The Black Lives Matter Movement to life for me, but also how difficult it is for students of color to actually stay in school and graduate regardless of the quality of the education.  Ironically,  Michael Brown's mother was one of the student's who was bussed out of town for school when she was a kid while her son was in one of the most segregated school districts in the country.  A good quality education is a privilege as spoken by Johnson, Armstrong and Wildman that is enjoyed by only those of privilege in a segregated society.   

     The perspective of Rihanna Curtain was enlightening.  It showed the daily struggles of a student of color who was integrated.  She first handedly was exposed to Delpit's "culture of power" and truly had to learn Delpit's rules for participating in power.  She eloquently displayed that she had learned the rules and because she had learned these rules she was able to succeed and participate in the culture.