In “Are Private Schools Immoral?” by Dianna Douglas, featuring a conversation between Jeffrey Goldberg and Nikole Hannah-Jones, I feel as if most of the discussion is regarding public schools. Jones mentions how public schools have a tendency to stockpile the better portion of their resources and provide them to schools tending to a more white population. She then describes how if this isn’t to occur, or if white students live where they would be expected to go to a school composed of more than 15% black students, they go to private school. As I aforementioned in my reading response to Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States by Kenneth T. Jackson, where I come from, this seems to be a reality. I discussed Massapequa and Amityville, how Massapequa’s graduation rate is 17% higher, and their minority enrollment is 88% lower. Everything about the two schools are different, and Jones may be correct as to why. Also how the piece mentions white people attending private school instead of the public school seems to be true based on my personal anecdote. South Amityville is a very affluent area, even more so than Massapequa. It’s actually where the house from the movie The Amityville Horror is located. My friends that went to private school had made a good amount of friends from there. This is because almost all white families that live there completely disregard their public school as an option, and apparently use it as a threat if their kids step out of line.

I personally like to think I’ve had both experiences, having come from Massapequa to Baruch. Baruch and Macaulay have provided me with a very eye-opening experience in terms of diversity within my two years here. I’m very grateful that I took the opportunity to embrace this, and didn’t attend a school where the breakdown of students was a carbon copy of Massapequa’s. Don’t get me wrong, everyone in the class knows I love Massapequa with all of my heart, but to be able to say I’ve had as wide a range of experiences in this situation as I have, is something I have to thank this school and city for.