A review by steller0707
Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol

5.0

While the circumstances in these 1988-1990 scenarios may be different from today’s particular circumstances, the principles still stand.  There is an inequity in the education of our children in many school districts, especially in urban districts that represent the highest concentration of children in poverty. The promise of Brown vs Board of Education, much less that of Plessy vs Ferguson, has not been achieved.  Much as the laws of Jim Crow have been circumvented by “nice white people” so the ways in which we finance schools and educate our citizens  have been thwarted by circumvention. School choice, reliance on test scores, method of funding have all played a part in the erosion of our schools, and have helped to fuel the dissension we see in our culture and on social media. Kozol ends this award-winning book with this statement: There is a deep-seated reverence for fair play in the United States, and in many areas of life we see the consequences in a genuine distaste for loaded dice; but this is not the case in education, health care, or inheritance of wealth. In these elemental areas we want the game to be unfair and we have made it so; and it will likely so remain.” Unfortunately, we have not been able to prove him wrong.