Sekou Biddle: DC must put a budget forward that is worthy of our Black students and families
DC public schools play a critical role in my family’s story. I met my wife in seventh grade in Deal Junior High School’s cafeteria, and we graduated from Wilson High School — she as valedictorian. My eldest, now in college, graduated from Wilson, and my youngest attends Wilson, which is now Jackson-Reed High School.
My children’s success is because of a cadre of support and opportunities that my family, our schools and our community offered. Our extended family has weekly dinners. My children’s grandparents took them to the zoo and DC’s museums and provided hours of babysitting. We had the time and money to ferry the kids from track, to crew, to soccer, and to speech class and guitar lessons, too. Their elementary, middle and high school experiences provided advanced coursework and many extracurriculars to choose from.
But these opportunities are too often a privileged commodity. Here in DC, accessing the experiences required to build a successful life is too dependent on living in a certain part of the District; luck in the school lottery; or the ability to afford, manage and transport children to and from extracurricular activities.
DC is no longer majority Black; lacks enough affordable housing; and is building back from a pandemic that disproportionately impacted Black, brown and low-income residents. Yet the contours of DC have not changed dramatically in decades because location, race and household income still largely dictate life opportunities and outcomes.
If we want to make DC the truly just and fair place we know it can be, we need to build our public schools and our support for young people beyond academics, and we must do so equitably. DC leaders should put forth a budget that starts with the fundamental question: What do all children need to be successful?
There exists a basic level of quality, access and experiences that every family wants for their own children and should want for other children as well. A larger, holistic view of how our city will support young people — especially young people of color — is more critical now than ever.
If we all truly want DC students to succeed, we must increase funding for targeted support for students considered “at risk of academic failure” and more funding for out-of-school time programs.
We must think about how to actualize these programs. That will require financial aid and vouchers so any family can participate, transportation so students can get to activities, and priority for students with disabilities and students considered at-risk.
These programs are not “extra.” They are the foundation to providing new and exciting opportunities for students to find their passion in playing an instrument, exploring a career path through an internship, understanding our world through service work, putting on a production of The Sound of Music, or — for my children — finding joy through athletics.
We know these opportunities pay off: Not only do they help students get into competitive colleges and universities, but they also help our children to develop their sense of self. They critically provide safe places for young people to be and child care opportunities when adults work one, two or three jobs to make ends meet.
We could provide this in every neighborhood — and we ought to do so. Right now, too many families, especially Black and brown families, leave their own communities and travel to predominantly white neighborhoods to access quality programs.
As a former DC Council member, I know it’s easy enough to increase one budget line or decrease another. But it’s harder, though critical, to think about how DC can make the investments that actually support the successful development of young people and families who currently lack both financial security and flexibility.
DC’s wealthier families pay out of pocket for safety from violence, for “better” schools, and for the experiences that make learning fun, deep and meaningful. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the DC Council must take this opportunity to enable all of DC’s families to access these same experiences. Forging this path should start with investments in more and equitable out-of-school time programs and dramatic increases in the at-risk student funding.
Sekou Biddle is the vice president of advocacy and student professional development programs at UNCF. He is a former at-large DC Council member and a former DC State Board of Education member. One of his two children is a current DC Public Schools student; the other is a DCPS graduate.
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