Read on Twitter
I want to re-up this thread now that I listened to the WNYC segment (audio wasn't available at the time) https://twitter.com/daniela127/status/1333854014698631172
Before we begin & in case it wasn't clear, the picture used to promote the story was 100% taken from our City Hall protest. The one @Gothamist went to and interviewed parents at but didn't bother to mention.
But back to this show. Two major problems. First, Jessica Gould (who is a nice person so I won't @ her here) says that the kids showing up for in-person learning are "disproportionately white in a system that is minority white." (I'm paraphrasing)
This is technically true, but the way it's phrased is *very* misleading. It implies that most of the kids showing up every day are white. As my friend @MiaEG_PD points out in her excellent thread based on math, this isn't true. https://twitter.com/MiaEG_PD/status/1333803459070599168?s=20
But a lot of people think it's true. And the way it's portrayed in the media feeds into that.
As an aside, our group got an interview request for the Monday after the reopening announcement. The interview was to take place outside of PS 6. PS 6 is 73% white (entire system is 15% white). None of us send our kids there.
We offered to be interviewed in front of the Title I majority minority school most of us actually do send our kids to, and never heard back.
Back to show: Jessica does mention parents who were furious at school closings, but doesn't refer to us by name ( #keepNYCschoolsopen) or mention how ferociously we spoke out. The mayor didn't just decide to reopen schools out of the goodness of his heart. We had a huge impact.
Then they open the show up to callers. Two people called in. Neither of whom are parents. Both are teachers.
Really? No parents called in? They couldn't proactively reach out to a parent who was relieved that schools are opened? I know a few...
The entire segment is really biased and slanted against the parents who furiously organized to reopen schools. Does not mention the arbitrariness of closing schools. Does not feature *any* parent stories. And propagates the false narrative that mostly white kids benefiting.
We can absolutely do better and I look forward to speaking with reporters who want to *entire* story on school opening and closing. /end
