Last Week through an Education Lens

At the start of a new week, I’m still reeling from the tragic deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, and Dallas police officers Lorne Ahrens, Michael Smith, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, and Brent Thompson.

While the arguments over whose lives matter more may spin on social media, I see a need to acknowledge the humanity behind these events. We need to see that a father died with his girlfriend’s four-year-old in the backseat and that an Iraq War veteran, just off his nuptials, was gunned down in the street. These were real people with lives and families, each one connected to webs of other people who they loved, and who loved them back. Those strands are now broken.

As a white man, with a shield of privilege, I hesitated to say anything. What value can I add to move this conversation forward? I came to the conclusion that saying nothing was worse. This country is facing a crisis that impacts all of us. All of us need to own it and find ways to act.

As the head of a foundation working to improve public education, I see the issues of race and equity running through the heart of what we do. Little Delaware, with less than a million people, is a microcosm of this nation. We were a slave state and an abolition state. We were at the epicenter of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, but didn’t see the door to integration open until two more decades and a court order. Some five decades after that, inequities still exist. Our foundation and 21 other organizations—ranging from the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League and the Latin American Community Center to the State Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable—are committed to redesigning our funding a system to equitably reflect the needs of our children. This is a system that predates Brown v. Board, and doesn’t acknowledge massive shifts in technology and student demographics (even though children learning English happen to be the fastest growing population in the state).

We are in a hole that is growing. The percentage of low-income children is growing in Delaware and nationally, disproportionally impacting black and Latino students. Data show that low-income students struggle more academically, indicating they likely will need more supports. Undereducated young adults with little to no work experience are going to have a tough time getting a good job. The options for kids living in poverty are not good. Violence often pervades their lives. In the City of Wilmington alone, 61 people have been shot and 14 have been killed since January. We have to own the fact that institutionalized racism runs through our schools and courts—and make a stronger push to change it.

We are a reflection of the nation. The tension that’s boiled over in Louisiana, Minnesota, Texas, and elsewhere could have easily happened here. We’ve certainly seen conflicts between law enforcement and black communities play out here.

Through my lens, the events of the last week are symptomatic of our nation’s ongoing challenges with race and equity.

We need to dig out—one courageous conversation, one uncomfortable risk at a time. We need to work to understand each other; to call out our friends or family when they cross a line; to engage in the political process.

On days like today, part of me feels as though my work is too slow, too plodding, too incremental. I’m working with many others on issues that take years to turn. But another part of me finds peace in the knowledge that it is exactly this grinding commitment that is needed. I take solace in the belief that we, in Delaware, in Minnesota, in Louisiana, and in Texas, can build a diverse movement that can lay a better foundation for the generations to come.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been shattered in the last seven days.