What We’re Listening To

The burdens of education inequality are quite clear — economic, social, and moral concerns often immediately come to mind. However, what about the personal and emotional burden of America’s unequal access to quality education?

There’s a program that brings together kids from two schools. One school is public and in the country’s poorest congressional district. The other is private and costs $43,000/year. They are three miles apart. The hope is that kids connect, but some of the public school kids just can’t get over the divide. We hear what happens when you get to see the other side and it looks a lot better.

Boys get the message at a young age: don’t show your feelings. Don’t rely on anyone. Vulnerability is a sign of weakness. This NPR Hidden Brain Podcast takes a close look at misguided notions of masculinity in the United States. The episode explores how these notions create mental health problems, physical health problems, and a growing epidemic of loneliness. The podcast concludes by considering how we might begin to tell a different story about what it means to be a boy/man.

Girls and boys face many problematic socializing messages about gender. These messages can severely burden their life trajectories. Therefore, it is incumbent upon schools and families to discuss and disrupt these problematic messages.

When Ron Brown College Preparatory High School – a new boys-only, public school in Washington, D.C. – opened its doors in August 2016 to a class of roughly 100 freshmen of color, NPR’s Cory Turner and Education Week’s Kavitha Cardoza spent hundreds of reporting hours capturing the school’s journey. This is their story.

Although CSA does not necessarily endorse or practice all the policies highlighted in the podcast, we are actively engaged in a lot of the themes on display: diverse faculty, anti-suspension strategies, a nurturing community, and acknowledging the important and intersecting forces of race, class and gender.