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A review by blueranger9
Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol
4.0
I was talking to my roommate about the fact the book is over 20 years old by now. It makes me wonder what has changed...then I remember the year I spent in a classroom in one of the most under served schools in one of the largest school districts in the country, and I was righteously indignant all over. I think we fail to see that if we don't all invest in the future of children-(be they "ours" or not, because the reality is that ALL children are our children)-we all lose.
We will lose in the economic matters, the cultural ones but most importantly the human component.
Kozol spoke a lot of financial equality. Money, the message seems to be, is crucial to rich districts but will be of little difference to the poor. He went on about equality v equity. Equity is seen as dispossession. Our country can't attempt both liberty AND equity?!
Every act of opposition demonstrates that those who question common sense ideas about the worth of spending money to create a better education for poor children have no doubts about the usefulness of spending money for the things that they desire. Do they really think that economics, which control all other aspects of our lives in this society, cease to function at the school house?!
Segregated, poorly-funded schools. Public school finance system reform.
These are all critical issues that need to be ever-present and at the forefront of our policy makers. Our public school system has, in effect, become an educational caste system. Those who fight so vehemently against attempting to solve the problems of equity are the ones who benefitted from privilege. "Democracy can stand certain kinds and amounts of inherited advantage. What democracy cannot tolerate is an aristocracy padded and protected by the state itself from competition from below."
Even an unadorned restatement of the contention of the connection between spending on the quality of education, is sufficient to reveal its absurdity. If one district has more funds, it has greater choice in what it can offer...if monetary inequity has no consequence to education, why does the right fight so hard against its abolishment?!
It sickens me that people make the argument that "poor districts are infringing on my rights, abusing the system, wah, wah, waaah." Wealthier districts receive state aid and federal funding. Care to give that back? Banks get bailed out by tax payers and the children who go home hungry on weekends are the ones who are described as "leeches" to the system?! Atrocious.
I won't even attempt to speak to people who want to abolish social service programs. That's another story for another day. What is blatantly apparent is that I was beyond blessed to have gone to Great Neck Public Schools. It is through this privileged lens that I hope to continue to work for those who have not.
We will lose in the economic matters, the cultural ones but most importantly the human component.
Kozol spoke a lot of financial equality. Money, the message seems to be, is crucial to rich districts but will be of little difference to the poor. He went on about equality v equity. Equity is seen as dispossession. Our country can't attempt both liberty AND equity?!
Every act of opposition demonstrates that those who question common sense ideas about the worth of spending money to create a better education for poor children have no doubts about the usefulness of spending money for the things that they desire. Do they really think that economics, which control all other aspects of our lives in this society, cease to function at the school house?!
Segregated, poorly-funded schools. Public school finance system reform.
These are all critical issues that need to be ever-present and at the forefront of our policy makers. Our public school system has, in effect, become an educational caste system. Those who fight so vehemently against attempting to solve the problems of equity are the ones who benefitted from privilege. "Democracy can stand certain kinds and amounts of inherited advantage. What democracy cannot tolerate is an aristocracy padded and protected by the state itself from competition from below."
Even an unadorned restatement of the contention of the connection between spending on the quality of education, is sufficient to reveal its absurdity. If one district has more funds, it has greater choice in what it can offer...if monetary inequity has no consequence to education, why does the right fight so hard against its abolishment?!
It sickens me that people make the argument that "poor districts are infringing on my rights, abusing the system, wah, wah, waaah." Wealthier districts receive state aid and federal funding. Care to give that back? Banks get bailed out by tax payers and the children who go home hungry on weekends are the ones who are described as "leeches" to the system?! Atrocious.
I won't even attempt to speak to people who want to abolish social service programs. That's another story for another day. What is blatantly apparent is that I was beyond blessed to have gone to Great Neck Public Schools. It is through this privileged lens that I hope to continue to work for those who have not.