Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist behind The New York Times’ 1619 Project, has publicly acknowledged the personal educational sacrifices made for her daughter in an effort to support struggling public schools in New York City. In a recent essay, Hannah-Jones, 50, revealed that she enrolled her only child, Najya, in two under-resourced Brooklyn public schools despite having the means and connections to secure admission to more prestigious institutions.

Starting in 2015, Najya attended PS 307 near DUMBO and Urban Assembly Unison, a middle school located between Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Both schools have predominantly Black student bodies—56% and 69%, respectively—and low proficiency rates on state standards, with PS 307 reporting just 19% of students meeting English standards and Urban Assembly Unison at 40% in 2024. Hannah-Jones and her husband purchased a $1.5 million brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 2018, underscoring their financial stability and access to better educational options.

Hannah-Jones framed her decision as a “sacrifice” intended to improve educational opportunities for Black students by enrolling Najya in schools with greater needs. “We thought by sending Najya to a mostly low-income and Black school, we could help improve it for all the children there,” she wrote. She described feeling an obligation to consider the collective good over her family’s individual advantage.

However, years later, Hannah-Jones disclosed that her daughter struggled academically in these schools and fell significantly behind her peers. Najya, now 16, expressed anger toward her family for prioritizing broader social goals over her own education. Reflecting on a confrontation that took place over the summer, Hannah-Jones shared Najya’s frustration: “Sometimes I wish instead of always thinking about other kids, you would have thought about me. I never really got the education I wanted.” Hannah-Jones admitted to feeling that her daughter had been “cheated” and questioned whether her decision ultimately failed both her values and her child.

Among the concerns highlighted was an incident in fourth grade when Hannah-Jones discovered that her daughter’s teachers had not been grading her math assignments, leaving Najya unaware of significant gaps in her understanding. Writing assignments also contained uncorrected errors, further obscuring her academic struggles. “Najya believed herself to be good at math—it was her favorite subject—but now I understood she thought she was correctly solving all her problems because her teacher was not checking her work,” Hannah-Jones wrote.

Eventually, Najya insisted on attending a different high school, a request her mother reluctantly granted. Upon enrolling, educators found Najya lacking in basic skills, necessitating intensive tutoring for her to bridge gaps and progress academically.

Hannah-Jones framed these experiences as a painful lesson in balancing activism and parental responsibility, acknowledging uncertainty about what was achieved by sacrificing her daughter’s education in pursuit of systemic change.