The Recruitment Divide

The Promise

Nashville Public Radio

Society & Culture

4.9 • 777 Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There was a time when the decision of where to send your child to school was relatively simple: public or private. Now, in Nashville and many other cities, those choices have multiplied exponentially.

In large part, it's because of white families — a way to keep them in the public system, but on their own terms. But with so many choices at play, things have gotten messy. Judgement is cast. Pedagogy is ruthlessly ranked. Gossip and chatter steer decision making. And information begins to splinter.

In this episode, we follow two mothers whose experiences in choosing a school couldn't be more different.

The Promise is written and produced Meribah Knight. Edited by Emily Siner, with additional editing by Anita Bugg, Tony Gonzalez, Samantha Max, Sergio Martinez-Beltran and Damon Mitchell. Fact-checking and research by Sam Zern. Advising for this season by Savala Nolan Trepczynski and Alex Kotlowitz. Mixing by Jakob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. The music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Previously on The Promise.
0:04.0	I was, you can tell the room was kind of tense.
0:10.0	Whenever we had white families that came into the school and they saw that a majority of the students and staff were African American,
0:17.0	the next thing you know, they were going to the board trying to get a special transfer, saying that the babysitter lived over here or over there.
0:24.9	Perhaps more blunt way of saying it is that if you are a white upper middle class,
0:29.2	upper class person in East Nashville and you want to send your kid to a school that's
0:35.5	not 100% white, well then go send your kid to Warner.
0:43.3	Good morning.
0:44.3	How can I help you?
0:46.3	Happy open house.
0:48.3	It's early December and I'm at Warner Elementary for an open house.
0:52.3	This is their big debut to the neighborhood, showing everyone the new Warner.
0:58.1	John Wren, the guy from episode five, who lamented all the competition among schools in the
1:03.4	neighborhood, has been planning this event for months.
1:06.8	With Warner's need to recruit new students, the stakes are high.
1:11.2	Hello, hello.
1:12.7	Hey.
1:14.4	Whoa, look at these fancy pens.
1:16.1	Aren't they?
1:18.0	Are you still nervous?
1:19.5	Oh, I'm always nervous.
1:21.2	I'm always nervous.
	...

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