NY Times Series Is About Homelessness, Poverty, Inequality and Public Education
This is also a story of the role of a public school in the life of a child who lacks another anchor. At school she has her own place to hang her coat. School is a place where much of the time she can hide the fragility of her family’s stability and where the principal and a special teacher willingly care for her and her siblings.
Here is a child whose parents both struggle with drug addiction and whose mother counsels her to fight to secure her place. But Desani also listens to the teacher she respects, someone who grew up in the neighborhood, and who advises, “I don’t ever wanna hear, ‘Well, my mother told me to do this,’ unless you know that’s the right thing. I am telling you, as sure as I’m sitting here, you’re gonna be held responsible for the choices you make.” “You care about your life. There are people out there