Dear Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools,
I feel as if I have been intending to write this letter for years now. Perhaps it is a bit on the nose to choose to write directly to my school district after taking a class on social justice in education, but believe me when I say I have thought about many of these concepts for a long time.
Allow me first to describe my experience within the bounds of your authority. It could be argued that you gave me everything. I won’t contest that stance. I was always treated with respect and love from my educators and the system of white supremacy upheld within your walls. I was universally beloved by my teachers and often, members of administration. As a “gifted” student in the LEAP program I was given access to a great number of resources, and I took advantage of so many. I learned high school level math and science as a 12-year-old, I was offered opportunities to compete in Model UN and math competitions, I even was able to go on a two-week experience to China with a school group. All of this left me well-prepared for the many AP and honors classes I took in high school along with the clubs I participated in and lead. All of these, of course, went into my college applications, with the hope of landing me in the most prestigious schools possible. It worked. I was accepted into the Ivy League. And all the time, I was praised for my “good” behavior and inherent “intelligence”. So why, then, would I choose to write this letter?
The reality is, I’m angry, CHCCS. What the hell did I do to deserve such special treatment? What about me was special or worthy of such attentions? Most importantly, what was so valuable about me that it was necessary to afford me such luxuries at the expense of so many others? Specifically, what was your reasoning for giving me so much, while depriving your students of color and your lower income students. You can’t pretend that this isn’t precisely what you are doing.
Let’s start with the beginning, then. To be frank, you shouldn’t be a separate institution from Orange County Schools to begin with. I understand there is a higher density population in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, but we know that this separation inherently causes lesser diversity within the district. Asking students to take buses to other schools is not a ridiculous request, in fact it’s one of the most effect strategies to integrating schools. Thus, your very existence works counter to a goal of inclusion in the classroom. Next, we know that CHCCS is one of the richest school districts in the state. I understand the state does not provide adequate funding for education, and that’s a separate battle. And it’s great that you want to provide well for your students. But only those who can afford your elevated property taxes can send their students to your schools, so again, you’re stamping on diversity before it even has a chance to flourish. Now we can move on, past the very fact of your existence, to address some more specific things you do wrong.
I know you used to have limits on the number of honors classes high school students could take. What happened to those? Now there are no limits on students in honors or AP classes, and you must know your classrooms are increasingly segregated. But let’s move even earlier in your curriculums. You start tracking students differently at such a young age. Very strictly speaking for my age group it began in middle school, with a math test. Do well on one test, you’re advanced. Do poorly, you’re not. You claim you treat all of your students as advanced, and they may be “advanced” in comparison to the rest of the state, but what message are you sending those students in lower level math classes? And what’s the racial breakdown of these divides? Even more ridiculously, why did we experience different math classes and tracking in elementary school? True, the curriculums were meant to be the same, but why, in fourth grade, was there an accelerated math class, and a non-accelerated class? Tell me how that posed more of a benefit than a detriment to your students. Finally, and this should come as no shock at this point, I despise your LEAP program. A program I was a part of! Sure, I benefitted from it, but I know the breakdown of this program. I know who gets in and who doesn’t. And this is yet another way for you to provide your overly privileged students more opportunities while leaving your black and latinx students behind.
I know all of these things have been discussed at length over the years and I know you’re aware of these issues. You know that a few years ago a study of districts across the country indicated you had the second worst black-white achievement gap in the United States. Do you feel no shame? STOP BEING SO SCARED OF WHITE PARENTS. I’ve been able to witness a few of these conversations, and I know exactly what you value. Your district caves to every whim of rich and white parents in the district. The parents that threaten to send their kids to private school if you don’t agree to do their bidding. But why not just be content to let them leave? I’m convinced you wouldn’t have to lose too much money. I also know you’re afraid of a drop in test scores, which would threaten your reputation as the “best” district in North Carolina. But those rankings are bullshit and you should know that. You are not worth anything if you cannot provide adequate opportunity for ALL your students. You cannot claim to provide the best when the best is only allocated to those deemed “most likely to succeed”. Let me elaborate on that phrase actually, these are the students most likely to succeed in a white-supremacist, late-stage capitalist society. You’re doing nothing to challenge systems of oppression. Worse than that, you are actively contributing to them. And all I ask from you today is that you own this fact.
Please, CHCCS, stop intentionally blinding yourselves to your actions. You are choosing high test scores over the just distribution of resources. You are choosing money over diversity in the classroom. You are choosing to send your rich white students to Ivy League institutions while forcing black students into expulsion and into your “alternative school” Phoenix Academy. You are willfully ignorant. You choose to ignore the systems you are contributing to instead of living in your discomfort. You ought to feel shame, CHCCS! You are stomping on opportunities, stomping on lives, killing your students’ futures. Stop denying your complicity. Take a deep breath, open your eyes, and state the phrase “I am the problem”. You. Are the fucking. Problem.
You’re an “advanced” district, CHCCS, and I know your administrators and school board are made up of individuals educated on these topics. You cannot claim that any of this is a mistake, or that you represent any form of “meritocracy”. Do better, CHCCS. Please, for the sake of all of your students. Do better.
Sincerely,
Margaret Hubacher