Ryan Moten’s grandmother remembers her time at Philadelphia’s Roberts Vaux Junior High School fondly: the sewing classes, cheering at basketball games and swaying during dances in the gym. Ryan’s mother remembers her stint at Vaux a generation later differently. The Sharswood Blumberg neighborhood surrounding Vaux,…

The New York Daily News reported Feb. 1—the start of Black History Month—that a teacher in a majority-minority school in the Bronx, N.Y., instructed three black children in her seventh-grade class to lie on the floor during a lesson on slavery. Then she stepped on the students’ backs, allegedly to show them “how it…

Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. 

At times, black people, like any group battered and oppressed by the state, may celebrate any perception of forward motion. Folks scour social media pages to see who has what appointment, what political power is being amassed and what black person has been newly elected.

Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths.