Sunny Hostin Chose an Elite Private School for Her Kids While Defending the System Trapping Yours

September 25, 2026 Cat2, The Media
Axel Bueckert via shutterstock

Nikole Hannah-Jones destroyed her daughter's education to make a point about public schools.

Sunny Hostin paid a fortune for Ethical Culture Fieldston School and went on The View the next day to explain why you shouldn't have that option.

Sunny Hostin chose an elite private school for her kids while defending the system trapping yours.

Hannah-Jones Confessed What Everyone Already Knew

The 1619 Project architect spent a decade telling America that fighting school segregation meant keeping your kids in failing schools.

Then her daughter Najya asked her one question that ended the argument.

"Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?"

Hannah-Jones knew. She admitted it.

P.S. 307 in Brooklyn had teachers who didn't show up, substitutes who didn't teach, an absentee principal, no homework was assigned, and nothing was graded.

Hannah-Jones and her husband bought a $1.5 million brownstone in Bed-Stuy while their daughter sat in classrooms where nobody was teaching.

Najya arrived at high school unable to write grammatical sentences or do long division – the gaps in her knowledge were too large to compete for a better school.

"I felt overcome with regret," Hannah-Jones wrote Sunday in the New York Times Magazine. "Najya deserved better. They all did. But she was mine."

Her daughter put it cleaner: "So you had money to send me to one of the best schools, and you chose not to?"

Hostin Walked Into Her Own Trap

The next morning, Sunny Hostin went on The View to weigh in.

She sent her children to Ethical Culture Fieldston School – one of New York City's most exclusive private institutions.

Her kids excelled academically.

But she described a different kind of suffering: racism, bullying, and what she called "psychological trauma."

Her daughter's classmates tried to stick pencils in her afro.

Boys mocked her appearance.

Hostin called it "trauma around their identity."

Then she pivoted to her real message.

Hostin argued the bigger problem is the $23 billion funding gap she says separates schools in non-White districts from their White counterparts – a structural inequality she says demands systemic reform, not school vouchers.

Read that again.

Hostin paid for Fieldston.

Her kids got a rigorous education.

Her advice to families who can't afford Fieldston is to wait – and fight for the systemic reform politicians have been promising for 50 years.

The Argument That Destroys Itself

The solution to bad schools is not keeping your children in them.

Hannah-Jones had the means to send Najya somewhere better.

She chose ideology instead.

Her daughter paid the price.

Hostin had the means to send her children to Ethical Culture Fieldston.

She chose correctly.

Her children excelled.

Heritage Foundation researcher Corey DeAngelis put it plainly: "Parents should put their children first. They should not sacrifice them to a failing government school system in the name of ideology."

A 2004 Heritage Foundation analysis found that 96 percent of Democrats who voted against the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program – school vouchers for low-income families – had sent their own children to private schools.

Ninety-six percent.

Hannah-Jones knows which schools work.

Hostin knows which schools work.

Every Democrat politician blocking school choice vouchers for poor families knows which schools work.

The families without a $1.5 million brownstone and a platform at the New York Times don't get that option.

Their children stay in the schools the elite won't touch.

Hannah-Jones ended her essay with a line that should haunt her: "There is no absolution to be had for any of us."

She's right.

But absolution isn't what poor Black families in Brooklyn are asking for.

They're asking for the same choice Nikole Hannah-Jones had – and chose to waste.

Sources:

  • Lindsay Kornick, "'The View' Host Sunny Hostin Claims Her Children Experienced Racism at Private Schools," Fox News, September 21, 2026.
  • "1619 Project Founder Regrets School Choice for Her Daughter, Admits Putting Ideals Ahead of Her Education," Fox News, September 21, 2026.
  • "Congressional Hypocrisy on School Choice," The Heritage Foundation.
  • "That One Little Thing Nikole Hannah-Jones Failed to Bring Up in Her Remorse," American Thinker, September 2026.