I look east at the pinkish purple horizon line and the fading blue sky. Birds chirp, airplane overhead, Cartoons in the background. Another looming hurricane in the forecast for the southeastern U.S.. I obsess about Elementary School segregation in my district and the lack of Total Communication classrooms in America. I am reminded I have anxiety. Bad anxiety.

My children will be in Kindergarten next Fall. I have heard people talking about our local schools for years, real estate agents saying the houses don’t sell here because of the school district. Or that one school is superior to another, one school has a higher number rating. This number they found on a web site called “Great Schools”. It’s always bothered me, but I hadn’t done research. I’ve been more focused on Fiona’s access to Total Communication when she gets to Elementary.

Last week I did a tour at my “home school”. It has a score of 3/10 on Great Schools. The school is mostly Hispanic. It was amazing visiting this school. The curriculum was fantastic, the teachers and principal full of excitement, I could tell they were passionate about education. The children were happy, well behaved, and interested in what their teachers were teaching.

I started comparing the schools, seeing how the “white schools” had higher scores. The schools my friends and neighbors send their kids to. I was thinking it’s “Great Schools” fault. I want to know where do they get their test scores from? How do they come up with these scores?

Then I realized those questions are important, but what about the question of how do the white parents, who are educated, affluent, decide that one school is better than the other? Do they rely on the score alone? Are they unconsciously racist? Are they consciously racist?

I have many questions and concerns about many things! I can’t answer them all.

I plan on doing a series of articles about this subject.