Who's Afraid of Public Schools?

Last week, parent volunteers began patrolling my children’s Title One public school grounds, keeping an eye out for ICE agents. The instructions were simple — if you see a car that looks like it is a compensation for something, it’s probably ICE! (Think: big ass chevy SUV, Calvin pissing decal on the back window). Some parents and kids didn’t make it to the Fall Festival — they are only leaving their homes for essentials. Others showed up, perhaps in defiance, and as I stood at our heavily-guarded school gates, Halloween earrings on, bopping my head to Golden (somehow Halloween playlists this year are mostly KPDH), rocking another parents’ baby, I felt that defiance too.

Meanwhile, across the Bay, a school in San Francisco is using AI to teach their students, for just two hours a day. The rest of the time, these already well-resourced and self-directed students are free to build apps and pitch businesses. A totally new kind of person called a “guide” uses data about their learning to create new learning opportunities for them, kind of like, oh I don’t know, a teacher.

i hope the ai school kids have lots of time freed up to do the parachute

Having worked in schools for two decades, I am very aware that school as we know it does not work, can be toxic, even, for some children. Disabled kids can be underserved (though who but public schools has the responsibility to serve them?) Children from low-income backgrounds are not reading and writing and succeeding the way they deserve to (but where else, especially now, are so many children cared for?). There are unsafe schools, unsafe teachers, just like there is the dark web and Roblox and chatbots that tell people to kill themselves.

But don’t get it twisted, none of this — illegal raids to remove so-called criminals from school communities, gutting the department of special education, the rise of the AI teacher, private school vouchers, you name it — is actually a good-faith attempt to make children’s lives better. They want public schools to squirm, to suffer, because they are public institutions, because they don’t ascribe to their jaded organizational principals. Because they are for everyone.

I am perhaps old-fashioned in still finding real people full of information and intrigue. The dad sitting next to me on a recent flight to LA, for instance, lamented the individualization of technology, especially for children. When he was growing up in India in the 90s, there were only a few families who had a TV in their homes. So they all went over to that kids’ house, navigating the mess that is human interaction, angling for space on the couch, or perhaps negotiating channels.

What does it mean, I wonder, to not have to share your AI teacher with other students? I watch with some anxiety as my second-grader sits through literacy lessons that are not in many ways for her (she is in the top percentile of readers, much like those students at the AI school), as she complains, at times, of being bored. Would she be better off in the world many powerful people would like us to accelerate rapidly towards, despite our lack of thought about what the other parts of that world look like?

When in our hour-long conversation, we touch on AI school, the plane dad poses the question I wish the AI-schoolers would: “I guess it depends on what you think school is for.”

After a life in education, and two kids, two-months into a PTA-presidency where I stumble hard but spend most of my time listening to other people and trying to build connections, I have a working answer.

truths from my neighborhood district special ed site

At the fourth-grade poetry slam, my son wrote from the perspective of our cat. He shared his Google Slides, accompanied by many gifs of tuxedo cats doing cute things. Not all technology is bad! His timidness and retainer made it difficult to hear him, but he was still magnificent. A classmate wrote an ode to their teacher, and I watched the teacher beam as it was read and as, I’ll admit, tears rolled down my cheeks. I looked around that room (a “ portable” trailer, as many classrooms in California are) and felt so lucky to be with those adults, those kids. A grandpa, who later admitted to writing some poetry himself, snapped and mmm-hmmmed after each performance.

I didn’t think once about what a shithole this place was, how I hoped the government, or better yet, tech companies, would spirit us away to a brighter future. We do have problems to solve, but we already know how to solve them, have known for a long time. Until we spend the time and money and social capital to do so, I’ll be on the corner, trying to protect the children in my life from assholes and snapping my fingers when they put themselves out there.

School is for reading and writing, and math and science. But more than that, school is for others. School is for helping your Kindergarten buddy when you make it to fifth grade and become a mentor. It is for learning how to communicate with a gentle teacher as well as a stern one. It is for finding some tape with your friends and marking the outlines of a four-square court, whether you have the funding to paint one or not. It is for serving food at the all-school event, heaping lasagna onto the plate of another parent from another part of town whose language you do not speak. School is for patience and flexibility and discomfort and pride and and yes, boredom, and ultimately, love.

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Also, this:

New Lily Allen is a divorce album for 2025. Marital sex has gotten a lot more complicated since Lemonade…

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And, I’ve been doing things! Like…

Talking cross-gender friendships with good guyfriend-turned-co-host

Garrett Bucks

Maybe the Real Gender Was the Friends We Made Along the Way

Interviewing the brilliant Taylor Harris about life as an AuDHD mom:

Dropping the Ball on Purpose with Taylor Harris

Reviewing my favorite move of the year so far for the The Cut

And finally, speaking of public schools, if you’re in the Bay Area, come out and support the Equity Fund for OUSD schools with a rad night of trivia hosted by me and my Jeopardy-champion husband!