Class Divide looks at the disparity of wealth in America
There is no place in our society that better personifies the differences between economic and social classes than our schools. Education is meant to be egalitarian. Knowledge is the great equalizer. It is one of the only forces in the world that has the power to take a child from nothing and give them the opportunity to become something. It can remove all barriers. Challenge all ideas. Change the world. It knows no equal save one: money.
Great wealth can do all of this or none of it. Wealth is the singular power concentrated. If combined with education, it can make or unmake the world. No matter the laws, no matter the policies, no matter the party, wealth cannot be controlled. It will always belong to the elite. It resists redistribution at all levels. It protects itself from harm through the great power it wields.
Education, on the other hand, can be handed out with a library card. It can be increased through an internet connection. Knowledge is irrepressible in the world conditions. Fredrick Douglass became a statesman despite slavery. Malala Yousefzai became the voice of her generation despite the Taliban. A flower can bloom through the concrete. But the true sign of a progressive society is the education it provides.
The disparate outcomes in learning when measured by wealth are a mark of a nation’s equality. Class Divide is an HBO documentary that examines these ideas by telling the stories of young people in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. It is a study of gentrification, of gaps, of differing realities that are found everywhere, not just America’s most well known city.
Avenues: The World School is a for-profit private school founded in 2012 in Chelsea. It teaches some of the city’s most elite students, boasting a $40k tuition just to attend. Inside is a wonderland of progressive education—the classrooms and hallways are a brilliant, clean white. Touchscreens abound in each classroom, with technology seamlessly integrated into every lesson.
Classes are built around roundtable discussion, without lecture or traditional classrooms. Learning is student led and student engaged. They learn Chinese and Spanish from kindergarten through graduation, ensuring every child is trilingual by the time they leave.
Students from Avenues are expected to attend Harvard or Stanford. Attending a state school is unheard of. Directly across the street from Avenues are the Chelsea housing projects, where a family’s yearly income is often less $20,000 a year, or half of the tuition at the private school.
The families in the projects attend either the local Catholic School or the public school and the facilities could not be more different. While the Avenues students share playgrounds and parks, the children are worlds apart and never interact. Avenues students are often warned to stay away from places like the Chelsea projects.
While the film focuses on the students at Avenues and the youth of the projects, the ancillary issue is one of gentrification. Class Divide also discusses the building of the High Line, a NYC public park built above the streets that stretches 22 blocks through Chelsea.
While it was meant to bring the neighborhood together, it has encouraged real estate development in the area and the building of high rise apartments that cater to the super rich—often, foreign and anonymous buyers who are paying $30 million to $40 million for a 6000 square foot apartment.
In an effort to alleviate the problem and encourage diversity, the city requires these high rises to build low income apartments on the lower levels, which are distributed by lottery. Those lucky enough to win a chance to live in the building are asked to enter through a side street, dubbed the “poor door.” The differences between the social classes couldn’t be more literal.
The distance between Chelsea and Chattanooga isn’t as far as it seems. Some 30 percent of students in Chattanooga attend private schools. Our magnet schools tend to be heavily populated with one class of student, despite the open and transparent lottery system.
Just last month, the front page of the Times Free Press exalted homeowners moving downtown while reminding us that black families here are disproportionally denied loans. These similarities between two vastly different cities point to a gap that is happening across the country.
Last week’s election showed how divided we are as a nation. Class Divide helps to give us a reason why.