‘Punished for Dreaming’ is a needed read on how school reform harms Black children

Preschool teacher Bridget Jeffrys reads to students at Dorothy I. Height Elementary School in Baltimore, Oct. 3, 2024 | Stephanie Scarbrough/AP

Bettina L. Love’s Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal is a necessary read for all teachers and public education advocates. In fact, as we enter a second Trump administration and Republican-dominated government, we should consider our role as public education advocates.

The book, published in 2023, asks: “What is owed to Black children and their families who have been educated in a violent system that is dedicated to their deprivation?” As a response, Love calls for educational reparations. In each chapter, she details the harm Black children have suffered as a result of reforms.

At times, this may be in the backlash to a reform meant to improve access to education—such as the “educational white rage” in response to integration policies. Other times, the harm is through the half-baked nature of solutions that do not adequately challenge the hierarchy of racial capitalism and, therefore, reinforce inequality even through attempts at educational improvement.

The reforms Love refers to are not exclusively within the field of education. Others relate to housing or incarceration. She lists: “the gutting of cities through racial zoning laws, subsidies for building all-white suburbs, tax exemptions for white people to build their own private schools, white people calling for school choice when the choices are not good enough for their own children….”

Housing is intertwined deeply with educational outcomes through the interrelationship of taxes and educational funding, as well as the stress of housing insecurity on a student’s educational experiences. The last of the reforms listed above—school choice—is one of the educational priorities of the incoming administration. It is important to see it within the context Love provides as a reform with impacts that further pull resources for education away from Black students.

When presenting the relationship between incarceration and schools, Love chooses not to name it as a school-to-prison pipeline but instead to call out how “All Black life regardless of the setting is susceptible to incarceration, punishment, disposability, testing, and being branded a threat by the state.”

She continues on to list: “Driving is carceral—Sandra Bland, sleeping is carceral—Breonna Taylor, shopping is carceral—George Floyd, playing in the park is carceral—Tamir Rice….”

Through naming the unjust murders of Black individuals, Love reminds the reader that the struggle for educational equity is inseparable from fighting anti-Black violence and incarceration. As we know from the past eight years of struggle, Trump empowers white nationalists and white supremacists. It is ever important to understand how the issues of anti-Black violence and incarceration are issues that affect Black students in all settings and must be considered as top concerns by educators.

With Love’s analysis of the harms of reforms, it could be confusing to understand where to go from here. However, her vision for “educational reparations” emerges from the need for policies “that will atone for the centuries during which Black people have endured disparities in wealth, income, education, health, sentencing and incarceration, political participation and subsequent opportunities to engage in American political and social life.”

She refers to Martin Luther King Jr. in her understanding of the importance of reforms, writing: “In 1965, Dr. King delivered rousing speeches calling for the end of old man segregation and the social systems that maintain white supremacy. In his addresses to crowds of thousands, he said: ‘It may be true that the law can’t change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.’”

As we enter a Trump administration dominated by strong right-wing forces, where it can be guaranteed that “educational white rage” will be in effect, it is ever more important to understand the political need to fight for all powers to “restrain the heartless.”

As we consider the role of educators in the incoming administration, we must double down on our seriousness as public education advocates. Whatever struggle is in store—whether it be for affordable housing, lowering incarceration, fighting against school choice as a strategy for weakening public education, or saving the Department of Education, it is important to understand each of these struggles as fighting toward educational reparations for Black students.

To look at the fight of educators in the upcoming administration and not call out specifically the harm that a Trump administration will cause to Black students is shameful.

Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal

By Bettina L. Love

Macmillan Publishers, 2023, 352 p.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Emma Glazer

Emma Glazer is an educator and activist, writing from Philadelphia.