One-trick monomaniacs don’t just bore their audience, they hurt those closest to them with their narcissistic need to prove themselves right.
asserted
themselves → bore → need
That’s the unwitting admission that Nikole Hannah-Jones, the 1619 Project rewriter of history and race obsessive, made in a new piece about her daughter Najya’s educational journey.
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Jones → ’ → journey
In The New York Times Magazine, Hannah-Jones reveals that Najya had confronted the wealthy writer about her decision to knowingly send her to underperforming public schools in New York City (“So you had money to send me to one of the best schools, and you chose not to?”) as a kind of political statement.
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you → reveal → statement
“We thought by sending Najya to a mostly low-income and Black school, we could help improve it for all the children there,” mused Hannah-Jones, citing her ability to cut checks and use her “connections and time and status” to change things on the ground.
uncertain
Jones → think → ground
It was a choice that Hannah-Jones first wrote about a decade ago and previously taken a victory lap over.
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Jones → write → lap
“By test-score metrics many would label this school a failing school,” declared Hannah-Jones about her Najya’s middle school in June 2024, “but we judge these schools AND their students without ever stepping foot inside.
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we → label → foot
Eight years later, I still know we made the right choice.”
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we → know → choice
Two years after that, however, Hannah-Jones has regrets.
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Jones → have → regrets
In between detailing the dismal environments she had subjected her offspring to, the writer admits: “Najya deserved better.
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Najya → detail → better
They all did.
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They → do → ?
This girl, my only child, looked to me to protect her, to give her what she needed to thrive.
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she → look → what
And I had not chosen her.”
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I → choose → her
Indeed — but Hannah-Jones is the kind of sinner who attends confession only to make a mockery of it after leaving the booth.
Her lament of her betrayal of Najya is accompanied by all the same boogeymen she’s built her career on: racism, “school segregation,” “educational apartheid,” school choice.
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she → attend → career
Hannah-Jones somehow still believes that these malign, vacuous forces are to blame.
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forces → believe → ?
Yet the apparently nightmarish elementary school Najya attended spends more than $52,000 per year on each pupil and boasts a student-to-teacher ratio of 9.8:1.
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Najya → attend → 9.8:1
For some perspective: The decidedly-not-failing, predominantly white district I graduated from in 2016 spent $27,831 per pupil as of two years ago and has a nearly identical ratio.
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I → fail → ratio
This is where the hard truths come in.
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truths → come → ?
No amount of money or personal clout of the kind Hannah-Jones thought she was bringing to the table is going to turn bad schools around.
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she → think → schools
As a Manhattan Institute report published this month observed, the members of New York state’s Board of Regents are appointed by a Democrat-dominated state Legislature that’s in bed with the teachers’ unions.
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that → publish → unions
An unaccountable body operating “largely independent of executive oversight” that continues to disappoint.
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that → operate → oversight
Rather than try to hold schools and teachers to higher standards, the board spends its time getting rid of anything resembling accountability.
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board → try → accountability
Its latest move will remove the requirement that students pass certain Regents tests to graduate.
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students → remove → tests
New York deserves a system built for its students, not for the low-performing, no-show teachers and administrators described by Hannah-Jones.
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York → deserve → Jones
Administrators must hold their teachers accountable for poor performance.
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teachers → hold → performance
The Board of Regents must demand more of administrators.
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Board → demand → administrators
The Legislature ought to take more pride in the board’s performance.
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Legislature → take → performance
And if they won’t, voters ought to throw the bums out.
But it doesn’t stop there.
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it → throw → bums
Parents must hold themselves accountable for their children’s behavior and level of academic commitment.
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themselves → hold → commitment
And students themselves must take responsibility for their own lives.
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students → take → lives
Hannah-Jones presents her own daughter’s conclusion that she wouldn’t be able to get into one of the Big Apple’s elite schools as a failure of the “system.”
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she → present → system
But they’re actually indictments of the parents who sanctioned such a defeatist, self-destructive worldview.
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who → ’re → worldview
Students and schools fail not because there’s a vast conspiracy to deprive them of what they need to thrive.
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they → fail → what
They fail because administrators, teachers, policymakers and parents fail them — usually by expecting too little of them.
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administrators → fail → them
In the comments section of her piece, Hannah-Jones divulged that Najya had deemed her self-reflection insufficient.
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reflection → divulge → piece
The Aporia
