Chandler School

if these children want to attend an elite college, their best bet by far is to spend their adolescence in a school where the experience of being Black is, for many, a painful one.

Among the posts from more recent students, what’s striking is that several kinds of experiences were related over and over: the expectation that Black kids would be excellent athletes (and possibly weaker students); insulting assumptions about Black students’ family backgrounds; teachers repeatedly confusing the names of Black students; other students constantly reaching out and touching Black girls’ hair; and non-Black students using the N‑word. Read collectively, these posts are a damning statement about the schools.

Private-school parents have become so terrified of being called out as racists that they will say nothing on the record about their feelings regarding their schools’ sudden embrace of new practices. They have chosen, instead, anonymous letters and press leaks.

To look at ourselves honestly means to ask: Why are our schools here? The raison d’être of independent schools has been, and continues to be, that of advancing the interests of those who already have privilege—to provide a return on investment (ROI) to those who have sufficient disposable income to afford independent school. To put it differently, our main job is to preserve the social status quo or reproduce the elite; this class-bound purpose results in a hierarchical view of the world in which our students are destined for leadership. In our mission statements, the idea that we are creating leaders is almost universal. On their face, these statements provide a binary and hierarchical understanding of society, one in which there are leaders and followers, and we are teaching the leaders.

noblesse oblige, a worldview that accepts and perpetuates existing social hierarchies while promoting social good.

When we look at our schools’ service programs, the idea of “giving back” is ubiquitous. Yet we fail to discuss or even question how much taking is appropriate.

Data from the NAIS Snapshot surveys of varying groups of independent school leaders reveal that 61% of schools have increased their expense budgets for the 2020-2021 fiscal year, while 58% are projecting a loss for the same time period.

49% of schools experienced a decrease in enrollment for the 2020-2021 school year, with 33% seeing a decrease of greater than 5%. At the same time, 47% of schools reduced their fundraising goals from the previous year.[2] Tuition revenue will only help fill the gap at some schools: 49% increased their tuition, while 41% kept it the same and just 5% of schools reduced it.[3] However, 70% do expect to raise tuition in 2021-2022.[4]

Sixty-seven percent of schools have already implemented revenue-increasing strategies, and 76% plan to do the same in 2021-2022. Schools most commonly plan to rely on summer programs, with 67% already offering them and 79% likely to for the next summer.