I wrote a few weeks ago about some of my own retrospective observations about primary and secondary education. This past week, as I was listening to rapper J. Cole’s latest album KOD, a particular series of bars on the song “BRACKETS” (one of the better songs on the album, in my opinion) stuck out to me and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the laundry list of critiques I have of the education system, some of which I might delve into in the future.

“I guess they say my dollars supposed to build roads and schools

but my n*ggas barely graduate, they ain’t got the tools.

Maybe ’cause the tax dollars that I make sure I send

get spent hiring some teachers that don’t look like them.

And the curriculum be tricking them, them dollars I spend

got us learning about the heroes with the whitest of skin.

One thing about the men that’s controlling the pen

that write history, they always seem to white-out they sins.”

— from “BRACKETS” by J. Cole