Does New Brunswick Value Children of Color?
On Monday, March 9th, the New Brunswick Planning Board heard people express their grievances for hours. The students of Lincoln Annex School, their parents, Rutgers University students and professors, professionals, and residents all felt so passionate that they waited in line to have their voices finally heard.
However, the very valid questions, concerns, and suggestions of the public fell on deaf ears. The Planning Board, with a 3–2 vote, approved the plan to build Robert Wood Johnson’s proposed cancer pavilion on the land that Lincoln Annex School currently occupies.
The current plan proposes to displace these 750 students and move them to a warehouse school in a location that is further away from the neighborhood. This would be inconvenient for families with limited transportation options and significantly impact the learning experience of the students.
Following the Board of Education’s voteto sell the school, the City of New Brunswick has failed its’ citizens once again, it has failed its’ children for the second time. In wake of situations like these you wonder if children are the future, whose children are we talking about?
A large portion of New Brunswick’s population is undocumented and low-income. Are these children the ones they’re talking about, the ones who are our future?
Yes. Although the answer is yes, cities like New Brunswick are constantly showing that they believe otherwise.
Low-income communities of color across the country are constantly getting the short end of the stick in many different ways. The displacement of children from the Lincoln Annex School, one of the city’s best performing schools, is another example of this.
According to a 2016 study, only 51% of students from economically disadvantaged areas attend college immediately after graduating high school, in comparison to 76% of students in more affluent areas. And in the City of New Brunswick, only 69% of students graduate high school.
Coming from homes and cities where there is not a lot of money to go around plays a large part in the educational experience of students and the conditions of the schools they attend. But are these the only reasons low-income students don’t perform as well as their wealthier counterparts?
The disinterest in and divestment from education at the hands of the city is a reason for this as well. New Brunswick, and cities like it across the country, show they don’t believe in their students by choosing to invest their money, time and resources into other pursuits.
These cities see students who don’t graduate, don’t attend college, and don’t make it out of generational poverty and believe it’s their fault. They see them not as students full of potential but with limited resources, but as people who will not amount to much.
Not making education one of New Brunswick’s main priorities is a mistake that has irreversible damage. Taking the Lincoln Annex School away from those children will significantly affect how they perform and feel about school.
If learning in a toxic warehouse affects their grades, who will the city blame? Themselves, for causing instability and not valuing quality education, or the fifth graders for not being able to roll with the punches?
