A comprehensive list of the responses to the Nikole Hannah-Jones article

The viral article by Nikole Hannah-Jones— “In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?”—sparked an outpouring of responses from opinion writers far and wide, as did the accompanying This American Life episode. As a public service—and because of the opportunity I believe this moment provides to the school reform movement—I am tracking all of the posts we spot. If we missed any, please let us know at [email protected]. (Last updated October 1, 2026.)

—Mike Petrilli

Responses ranked by the outlet’s reach, as determined by Claude

1. Roland Fryer, “The Education of Nikole Hannah-Jones” (The Wall Street Journal)
2. Matthew Hennessey, “The Oblation of Nikole Hannah-Jones” (The Wall Street Journal)
3. Maud Maron, “Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Price of ‘Equality’” (The Wall Street Journal)
4. Maud Maron, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Is Wrong About School Choice” (The Wall Street Journal)
5. Elizabeth Grace Matthew, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Is Not a Bad Mom. She Is a Bad Journalist.” (USA Today)
6. Joshua C. Robertson, “Nikole Hannah-Jones missed the lesson. School choice matters” (USA Today)
7. Kira Davis, “The cult of the left takes no prisoners, only sacrifices — including their kids” (New York Post)
8. Daniel Di Martino, “Nikole Hannah-Jones ignores who failed her daughter—the teachers union” (New York Post)
9. Rich Lowry, “‘Perverse priorities’ made Nikole Hannah-Jones put her cause before her child” (New York Post)
10. Sam Munson, “I’m an NYC dad—here’s what Nikole Hannah-Jones got so wrong about our schools” (New York Post)
11. Ian Rowe, “Nikole Hannah-Jones accidentally gave us a vital lesson on school choice” (New York Post)
12. Isaac Schorr, “Nikole Hannah-Jones failed her daughter and learned absolutely nothing from it” (New York Post)
13. Keturah Kendrick, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’ New York school dilemma is shared by Black parents everywhere” (MS NOW)
14. Jesus Mesa, “Nikole Hannah-Jones May Have Just Written a Eulogy for Woke Idealism” (Newsweek)
15. Idrees Kahloon, “Committed Parents Can Only Overcome So Much” (The Atlantic)
16. Jenisha Watts, “Why I’m Sending My Black Son to Private School” (The Atlantic)
17. Paul Ollinger, “Nikole Hannah-Jones just ran head-first into the great dumbing-down” (The Hill)
18. Jay Caspian Kang, “Individual Choices Won’t Fix America’s Public Schools” (The New Yorker)
19. Zak Cheney-Rice, “No One Can Fix School Segregation Alone” (New York Magazine)
20. David Harsanyi, “Why Nikole Hannah-Jones is wrong about failing schools” (Washington Examiner)
21. Jill Filipovic, “What Are Progressives Supposed to Do About Public Education?” (Slate)
22. Alex Galbraith, “Wanting the best school for your kid doesn’t make you a hypocrite” (Salon)
23. Coleman Hughes, “Lessons from Nikole Hannah-Jones’ School Experiment” (The Free Press)
24. Brittany Bernstein, “How NYC Public Schools Failed Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Daughter” (National Review)
25. Charles C. W. Cooke, “That Should Be Curtains for Nikole Hannah-Jones” (National Review)
26. Charles C. W. Cooke, “What Nikole Hannah-Jones Doesn’t Say” (National Review)
27. John R. Puri, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Daughter Is Not the Only Victim” (National Review)
28. Inez Feltscher Stepman, “The Underfunding Myth Is Exposed” (National Review)
29. John Daniel Davidson, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Doesn’t Know What Education Is” (The Federalist)
30. Mona Charen, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Has the Wrong Answers on Schools” (The Bulwark)
31. Hannah Anderson, “On the Education of Children” (The Dispatch)
32. Jonah Goldberg, “A Parent Should Play Favorites” (The Dispatch)
33. Torrey Snow, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’ hard lesson on school choice” (Baltimore Sun)
34. Andrea Williams, “The missed opportunity in Nikole Hannah-Jones’ essay” (The Tennessean)
35. Khari Thompson, “When you’re a Black student in America, nothing is simple” (WBUR)
36. Danyale Freeman, “Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Black Education Debate” (Ebony)
37. Matthew Yglesias, “Why I send my kid to low-income urban public schools” (Slow Boring)
38. Noah Smith, “Stop spending money on smaller classes” (Noahpinion)
39. Alex Tabarrok, “The Tragedy of Nikole Hannah-Jones” (Marginal Revolution)
40. Billy Binion, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Experiment Accidentally Undercuts Her Case Against School Choice” (Reason)
41. Nick Gillespie, “Like Nikole Hannah-Jones, My Parents Put Ideology Over Pedagogy in Sending Me to Catholic School” (Reason)
42. Ilya Somin, “Exit, Voice, and Nikole Hannah-Jones” (Reason)
43. Corey Walker, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Daughter Was Right” (Quillette)
44. Diane Hernández, “From ‘woke’ inclusion to disillusion: Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones reflects on her daughter” (Voz)
45. Daniel Buck, “What Nikole Hannah-Jones Learned from Her Daughter’s School” (AEI)
46. Colleen Hroncich, “What Does Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Mea Culpa Say About the Importance of School Choice?” (Cato Institute)
47. Danyela Souza Egorov, “The Unmentioned Villain in Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Story” (City Journal)
48. Jennifer Weber, “What Nikole Hannah-Jones Wouldn’t Let Herself See” (City Journal)
49. Manikka Bowman, “The Real Lesson From Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Public School Dilemma” (Education Week)
50. Shavar Jeffries, “Families Do Not Have to Choose Between Community and Excellence” (The 74)
51. Kelsey Piper, “I’m with Nikole Hannah-Jones on this one” (The Argument)
52. Steven Wilson, “The Solution Nikole Hannah-Jones Didn’t Take” (Education Next)
53. Augustus Mays, “Black Parents Should Not Have to Choose Between Tutoring and Therapy” (Education Trust)
54. Corey A. DeAngelis, “NYT’s Nikole Hannah-Jones Regrets Sending Her Daughter to Failing Public School” (The Daily Economy)
55. Brady Leonard, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Fails the Test” (Independent Institute)
56. Jenny Devenny, “What Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Essay Means for White Families” (Integrated Schools)
57. Peter Boghossian, “She Failed Her Child. She Kept The Ideology.” (Substack)
58. Freddie deBoer, “No school will decide Najya Hannah-Jones’s Future or Fate” (Substack)
59. John Arnold, “A huge missed opportunity to call for real reform” (X)
60. Andrew J. Rotherham, “An Education Conservative Is a Liberal Who’s Had to Do Cafeteria Duty? What Nikole Hannah-Jones Misses About Public Education. Plus Fish.” (Eduwonk)
61. Joanne Jacobs, “A black mother’s choice for her son: It will be private school” (Joanne Jacobs blog)
62. Joanne Jacobs, “I created schools good enough for my own children” (Joanne Jacobs blog)
63. Joanne Jacobs, “Urban schools can succeed: Check the options before you flee to the suburbs” (Joanne Jacobs blog)
64. Peter Greene, “On Reactions To That Nikole Hannah-Jones Piece” (Curmudgucation)
65. Derrell Bradford, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Biggest Blind Spot” (Vital City)
66. Jed Wallace, “When Cognitive Dissonance Becomes Cognitive Offloading” (Charterfolk)
67. Eva Moskowitz, “I Also Sent My Children to a Nonselective, Overwhelmingly Minority Public School, but It Wasn’t a Sacrifice.” (Success Academies blog)
68. Naomi Kanakia, “The Case for Greatness” (Substack)
69. Alexander Russo, “The hero Nikole Hannah-Jones could have been” (Substack)
70. Robert Pondiscio, “The Lessons We’re Not Learning From Nikole Hannah-Jones” (Substack)
71. Chad Aldeman, “Parents Should Not Feel Guilty for Choosing a Good School” (Substack)
72. Nicholas Bagley, “Democrats Gave Up On The Schools” (Substack)
73. Ceci Bell, “Double Binds: The Tensions Between Black Activism, Collective Responsibility, and Individual Choice” (Substack)
74. RHG Burnett, “For Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Tragedy; For the Nation, a Catastrophe” (Substack)
75. Vivia Chen, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Is Triggering My Inner Chinese Mom” (Substack)
76. Charles Cole, III, “Read Out Loud Day” (Substack)
77. Mike Goldstein, “Those ‘Cafeteria Kids’ Fighting Each Other in that Nikole Hannah-Jones Essay” (Substack)
78. Anthonio L. Orridge, “While We’re Debating a Black Mother’s Choice, the System Gets Away Clean” (Substack)
79. Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs and Adam St. Bernard Jacobs, “The Personal vs the Systemic: Parenting Realities Within Racist Societies” (Substack)
80. Chris Stewart, “The myth of middle-class school choice supremacy” (Substack)
81. Chris Stewart, “We Should All Be Najya Now” (Substack)
82. Paula White, “Ten Years Later, Nikole Hannah-Jones Still Misses the Point” (Substack)

Responses Alphabetized by Last Name

1. Chad Aldeman, “Parents Should Not Feel Guilty for Choosing a Good School”
2. Hannah Anderson, “On the Education of Children”
3. John Arnold, “A huge missed opportunity to call for real reform”
4. Nicholas Bagley, “Democrats Gave Up On The Schools”
5. Ceci Bell, “Double Binds: The Tensions Between Black Activism, Collective Responsibility, and Individual Choice”
6. Brittany Bernstein, “How NYC Public Schools Failed Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Daughter”
7. Billy Binion, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Experiment Accidentally Undercuts Her Case Against School Choice”
8. Peter Boghossian, “She Failed Her Child. She Kept The Ideology.”
9. Manikka Bowman, “The Real Lesson From Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Public School Dilemma”
10. Derrell Bradford, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Biggest Blind Spot”
11. Daniel Buck, “What Nikole Hannah-Jones Learned from Her Daughter’s School”
12. RHG Burnett, “For Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Tragedy; For the Nation, a Catastrophe”
13. Mona Charen, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Has the Wrong Answers on Schools”
14. Vivia Chen, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Is Triggering My Inner Chinese Mom”
15. Zak Cheney-Rice, “No One Can Fix School Segregation Alone”
16. Charles Cole, III, “Read Out Loud Day”
17. Charles C. W. Cooke, “That Should Be Curtains for Nikole Hannah-Jones”
18. Charles C. W. Cooke, “What Nikole Hannah-Jones Doesn’t Say”
19. John Daniel Davidson, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Doesn’t Know What Education Is”
20. Kira Davis, “The cult of the left takes no prisoners, only sacrifices — including their kids”
21. Corey A. DeAngelis, “NYT’s Nikole Hannah-Jones Regrets Sending Her Daughter to Failing Public School”
22. Freddie deBoer, “No school will decide Najya Hannah-Jones’s Future or Fate”
23. Jenny Devenny, “What Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Essay Means for White Families”
24. Daniel Di Martino, “Nikole Hannah-Jones ignores who failed her daughter—the teachers union”
25. Danyela Souza Egorov, “The Unmentioned Villain in Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Story”
26. Jill Filipovic, “What Are Progressives Supposed to Do About Public Education?”
27. Danyale Freeman, “Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Black Education Debate”
28. Roland Fryer, “The Education of Nikole Hannah-Jones”
29. Alex Galbraith, “Wanting the best school for your kid doesn’t make you a hypocrite”
30. Nick Gillespie, “Like Nikole Hannah-Jones, My Parents Put Ideology Over Pedagogy in Sending Me to Catholic School”
31. Jonah Goldberg, “A Parent Should Play Favorites”
32. Mike Goldstein, “Those ‘Cafeteria Kids’ Fighting Each Other in that Nikole Hannah-Jones Essay”
33. Peter Greene, “On Reactions To That Nikole Hannah-Jones Piece”
34. David Harsanyi, “Why Nikole Hannah-Jones is wrong about failing schools”
35. Matthew Hennessey, “The Oblation of Nikole Hannah-Jones”
36. Diane Hernández, “From ‘woke’ inclusion to disillusion: Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones reflects on her daughter”
37. Colleen Hroncich, “What Does Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Mea Culpa Say About the Importance of School Choice?”
38. Coleman Hughes, “Lessons from Nikole Hannah-Jones’ School Experiment”
39. Joanne Jacobs, “A black mother’s choice for her son: It will be private school”
40. Joanne Jacobs, “I created schools good enough for my own children”
41. Joanne Jacobs, “Urban schools can succeed: Check the options before you flee to the suburbs”
42. Shavar Jeffries, “Families Do Not Have to Choose Between Community and Excellence”
43. Idrees Kahloon, “Committed Parents Can Only Overcome So Much”
44. Naomi Kanakia, “The Case for Greatness”
45. Keturah Kendrick, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’ New York school dilemma is shared by Black parents everywhere”
46. Jay Caspian Kang, “Individual Choices Won’t Fix America’s Public Schools”
47. Brady Leonard, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Fails the Test”
48. Rich Lowry, “‘Perverse priorities’ made Nikole Hannah-Jones put her cause before her child”
49. Maud Maron, “Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Price of ‘Equality’”
50. Maud Maron, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Is Wrong About School Choice”
51. Elizabeth Grace Matthew, “Nikole Hannah-Jones Is Not a Bad Mom. She Is a Bad Journalist.”
52. Augustus Mays, “Black Parents Should Not Have to Choose Between Tutoring and Therapy”
53. Jesus Mesa, “Nikole Hannah-Jones May Have Just Written a Eulogy for Woke Idealism”
54. Eva Moskowitz, “I Also Sent My Children to a Nonselective, Overwhelmingly Minority Public School, but It Wasn’t a Sacrifice.”
55. Sam Munson, “I’m an NYC dad—here’s what Nikole Hannah-Jones got so wrong about our schools”
56. Paul Ollinger, “Nikole Hannah-Jones just ran head-first into the great dumbing-down”
57. Anthonio L. Orridge, “While We’re Debating a Black Mother’s Choice, the System Gets Away Clean”
58. Kelsey Piper, “I’m with Nikole Hannah-Jones on this one”
59. Robert Pondiscio, “The Lessons We’re Not Learning From Nikole Hannah-Jones”
60. John R. Puri, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Daughter Is Not the Only Victim”
61. Joshua C. Robertson, “Nikole Hannah-Jones missed the lesson. School choice matters”
62. Andrew J. Rotherham, “An Education Conservative Is a Liberal Who’s Had to Do Cafeteria Duty? What Nikole Hannah-Jones Misses About Public Education. Plus Fish.”
63. Ian Rowe, “Nikole Hannah-Jones accidentally gave us a vital lesson on school choice”
64. Alexander Russo, “The hero Nikole Hannah-Jones could have been”
65. Isaac Schorr, “Nikole Hannah-Jones failed her daughter and learned absolutely nothing from it”
66. Noah Smith, “Stop spending money on smaller classes”
67. Torrey Snow, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’ hard lesson on school choice”
68. Ilya Somin, “Exit, Voice, and Nikole Hannah-Jones”
69. Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs and Adam St. Bernard Jacobs, “The Personal vs the Systemic: Parenting Realities Within Racist Societies”
70. Inez Feltscher Stepman, “The Underfunding Myth Is Exposed”
71. Chris Stewart, “The myth of middle-class school choice supremacy”
72. Chris Stewart, “We Should All Be Najya Now”
73. Alex Tabarrok, “The Tragedy of Nikole Hannah-Jones”
74. Khari Thompson, “When you’re a Black student in America, nothing is simple”
75. Corey Walker, “Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Daughter Was Right”
76. Jed Wallace, “When Cognitive Dissonance Becomes Cognitive Offloading”
77. Jenisha Watts, “Why I’m Sending My Black Son to Private School”
78. Jennifer Weber, “What Nikole Hannah-Jones Wouldn’t Let Herself See”
79. Paula White, “Ten Years Later, Nikole Hannah-Jones Still Misses the Point”
80. Andrea Williams, “The missed opportunity in Nikole Hannah-Jones’ essay”
81. Steven Wilson, “The Solution Nikole Hannah-Jones Didn’t Take”
82. Matthew Yglesias, “Why I send my kid to low-income urban public schools”