How long is savage inequalities

Towns on the Bluffs are predominantly white and do not welcome visitors from East St. Louis and adjacent towns have for decades been releasing toxins into the sewer system. The pattern of concentrating black communities in easily flooded lowland areas is not unusual in the United States. Farther down the river, for example, in the Delta town of Tunica, Mississippi, people in the black community of Sugar ditch live in shacks by open sewers that are commonly believed to be responsible for the high incidence of liver tumors and abscesses found in children there.

Metaphors of caste like these are everywhere in the United States. Sadly, although dirt and water flow downhill, money and services do not. The dangers of exposure to raw sewage, which backs up repeatedly into the homes of residents in East St.

Louis, were first noticed, in the spring of , at a public housing project, Villa Griffin. While local physicians are not certain whether loss of hair is caused by the raw sewage, they have issued warnings that exposure to raw sewage can provoke a cholera or hepatitis outbreak. Louis health official voices her dismay that children live with waste in their backyards.

Health officials warn again of cholera—and, this time, of typhoid also. The sewage, which is flowing from collapsed pipes and dysfunctional pumping stations, has also flooded basements all over the city. A single engineer now does the work that 14 others did before they were laid off. By April the pool of overflow behind the Villa Griffin project has expanded into a lagoon of sewage. In May, another health emergency develops. Soil samples tested at residential sites in East St. Louis turn up disturbing quantities of arsenic, mercury and lead—as well as steroids dumped in previous years by stockyards in the area.

Although children rarely die of poisoning by lead, health experts note, its effects tend to be subtle and insidious. Lead poisoning in most cities comes from lead-based paint in housing, which has been illegal in most states for decades but which poisons children still because most cities, Boston and New York among them, rarely penalize offending landlords.

In East St. Louis, however, there is a second source of lead. Health inspectors think it is another residue of manufacturing—including smelting—in the factories and mills whose plants surround the city.

The Daughters of Charity, whose works of mercy are well known in the Third World, operate a mission at the Villa Griffin homes. On an afternoon in early spring of , Sister Julia Huiskamp meets me on King Boulevard and drives me to the Griffin homes. As we ride past blocks and blocks of skeletal structures, some of which are still inhabited, she slows the car repeatedly at railroad crossing.

A seemingly endless railroad train tolls past us to the right. On the left: a blackened lot where garbage has been burning. Next to the burning garbage is a row of 12 white cabins, charred by fire. This book was written almost 20 years ago, and rather than improving the quality of education for ALL children in impoverished school districts, we now give vouchers to allow the "good" children to leave them, creating even more of a vaccum for the children who are INDEED left behind.

Jun 08, Ariel rated it it was amazing Shelves: higher-education. This book makes me simultaneously want to scream and sit down to write a revised education budget. We should make this required reading in high school Or at least in the high schools where students can read. Sep 18, Dave Schaafsma rated it it was amazing Shelves: education. Important, seminal book. Class, money matters. New Trier is not Crane HS. The separate but unequal treatment of Amerca's children through school funding is tragic, criminal.

Kozol does and should discompose suburban liberals like me. This extraordinarily thorough and compelling book goes far beyond suggesting that there is a problem with America's schooling and priorities; it delves deeply into statistics, causes, and, most powerfully, reasons why we have allowed the problem to persist. Spoiler alert: Americans don't come off looking particularly ethical or sensitive in this analysis.

That's good. This journey through East St. Kozol is mad -- it's hard not to be -- but his tone is almost entirely rational and calm.

His book's strength flows from the statistics and details, even more than that the awareness of counterarguments, and most of all the interviews with children and educators. The most difficult point for him to make -- the one that should unsettle us all the most -- is that the problem in underfunded, abandoned poor, minority districts is exacerbated by the lovingly proper funding in other districts like the one where I live and teach.

In other words, this is not simply a cheerleaderly "Let's raise up the disenfranchised! As you can imagine, this didn't go down easily then and doesn't now.

The Camden chapter notes, "the rigging of the game and the acceptance, which is nearly universal, of uneven playing fields reflect a dark unspoken sense that other people's children are of less inherent value than our own. Now and then, in private, affluent suburbanites concede that certain aspects of the game may be a trifle rigged to their advantage. The reader cringes, probably gets defensive; like some of the well-educated youngsters in Rye, NY, with whom Kozol engages in a vigorous discussion, the response is often something like What, do you want everyone to be mediocre?

This is a story about racism and segregation. Those kids in Rye agree that equity a moral goal to be desired but believe -- as many suburbanites, liberal and conservative alike, would say -- equity probably wouldn't make much difference because poor children "would still lack the motivation" and "fail Kozol writes of the Rye teenagers: The children are lucid and their language is well chosen and their arguments well made, but there is a sense that they are dealing with an issue that does not feel very vivid, and that nothing that we say about it to each other really matters since it's "just a theoretical discussion.

Questions of unfairness feel more like a geometric problem than a matter of humanity or conscience. A few of the students do break through the note of unreality, but, when they do, they cease to be so agile in their use of words and speak more awkwardly. Ethical challenges seem to threaten their effectiveness. There is the sense that they were skating over ice and that the issues we addressed were safely frozen underneath.

When they stop to look beneath the ice they start to stumble. The verbal competence they have acquired here may have been gained by building walls around some regions of the heart. If someone grows up in the South Bronx, he's not going to be prone to learn Busing didn't work when it was tried," he says. I ask him how he knows this and he says he saw a television documentary movie about Boston. It's classic Kozol: analytical, probing, insightful, unsatisfied with cliches and platitudes, empathetic of all but unwilling to let any off the hook.

If the reader is not at least somewhat unsettled here, the reader lacks a heart. Indeed, Kozol's other great strength is the compassion with which he writes about those who suffer in these degraded environments: living in what is effectively a chemical dumping ground in East St.

Louis, going to schools with holes in walls and ceilings and tattered books that have to be shared, dealing with teachers who have given up, attending class in tiny and unpleasant rooms.

After descriptions of overcrowding throughout the Camden chapter, as they are in every chapter, he unwinds this passage that epitomize his more editorial moments: The crowding of children into insufficient, often squalid spaces seems an inexplicable anomaly in the United States. Images of spaciousness and majesty, of endless plains and soaring mountains, fill our folklore and our music and the anthems that our children sing.

The myth of America takes a beating in this book. It's hard to see how that is undeserved. It may be due to the changes in standardized testing over the twenty-four years since this was published that Kozol's obloquy against that particular hazard seemed less convincing to me than any of his other points.

He is, however, on point in suggesting that the teaching to which these inner-city kids are subjected is the least imaginative to be found, largely because of the desperate need to stay with nostrils above the crashing waves.

Maslow's hierarchy would tell us that. The core of this essential book is Kozol's thesis that education is a fundamental right, and that the nation has abrogated its responsibility toward the members of these communities with regard to that right. More than they are getting. The contest between liberty and equity in education has, in the past 30 years, translated into the competing claims of local control, on the one hand, and state or federal intervention on the other.

Liberty, school conservatives have argued, is diminished when the local powers of school districts have been sacrificed to centralized control.

The opposition to desegregation in the South, for instance, was portrayed as local states' rights as a sacred principle infringed upon by federal court decisions. The opposition to the drive for equal funding in a given state is now portrayed as local district rights in opposition to the powers of the state.

While local control may be defended and supported on a number of important grounds, it is unmistakable that it has been historically advanced to counter equity demands; this is no less the case today.

Woe to us if we don't heed Jonathan Kozol. Feb 02, Mark Kroll rated it it was amazing. Harrowing to read. Copyrighted in , this book demonstrates the severe inequalities of public education in America. Sadly, not much has changed. The imagery of children being exposed to such traumatic settings in their schools is heartbreaking.

Another example of how America has failed to provide basic needs to citizens. Especially troubling considering children are suffering due to ineffective school funding laws. Feb 25, Victoria rated it really liked it. It's a very disheartening book and is sadly still relevant today. I hope we can come up with solutions to education inequality problems and implement them but it will be tough to do. Jun 03, Cortney rated it really liked it. I'm often dumbfounded when I encounter someone who honestly believes that every has the same opportunities in life in Americ ""But [no one] can tell us what it means to a child to leave his often hellish home and go to a school -his hope for a transcendent future-that is literally falling apart.

I'm often dumbfounded when I encounter someone who honestly believes that every has the same opportunities in life in America, and that "anyone can make it if they work hard enough". They seem to truly believe that we all being life on the exact same "START" line, with the same resources afforded to each one of us. This is sadly not true at all. This book is an excellent example of how public schools consistently fail the poorest children, who are also often minority children.

Yes, it was written in However, in , I was 8. So the children Kozol writes about are a bit older and a bit younger than me. The descriptions of the conditions under which these schools are asked to function and educate are atrocious.

Passages about children meeting in bathrooms for reading classes, or senior students sharing 8th grade history texbooks that are 20 years outdated, are just the tip of the iceberg. The conditions that Kozol documented, in which children were expected to learn, and teachers were expected to teach despite the depravity, enraged me. I have done some preliminary follow up research on this subject, and many schools are still in such conditions today.

It is a disgusting fact in a nation as rich as ours, and it is an entrenched inequality that is enshrined in our laws, and the ways in which the American system finances education. Reading some of the court cases made me see red. I came across quotes from parents saying that "money doesn't matter" in education, yet turning around and fighting tooth and nail against a more equitable distribution. Or attend a school where 11 classes are crowded into the falling down gymnasium?

Or do science experiments in classrooms with no running water? To even try and say "money doesn't matter" with a straight face to a school that is falling down around its students is a peculiar type of cruelty. Jan 09, Nick Klagge rated it really liked it. This is one of the most compelling books I've ever read.

Written in , it is Kozol's account of the state of inner-city public schools at the time, and sadly, I believe the analysis to be practically unchanged in the intervening twenty years. It was especially meaningful for me as I try to move to a job in charter school management, both reinforcing the importance of the work and complicating my view of the problem and its solution. Kozol does not pull any punches, and at times this book was q This is one of the most compelling books I've ever read.

Kozol does not pull any punches, and at times this book was quite difficult to read, outlining in excrutiating detail the awful state of many inner city public schools.

He also has a unique style of writing, which seamlessly blends a clear sense of righteous anger and indignation with well-structured logical arguments. His critique of the status quo of public school funding mechanisms is very convincing. At the same time, as I mentioned, the book complicated my picture of the no-excuses urban charter school movement that I am hoping to join.

Kozol is very critical of the de facto racial segregation in the school system, which is a betrayal of Brown v. Board of Education, and as good as many charter schools are, part of their M. There is no clear right answer to this question. Another major issue is, now that charter schools are clearly established, what is the next move in the game? Through Kozol's lens I would say the ultimate goal would be to reform the public school system using lessons learned from charter schools.

This is an immense undertaking and I think there are still not many people who are really thinking in those terms. This was so frustrating to read! How can this be happening? In America? Education is supposed to be the great equalizer, but what students receive from public education is far from equal and definitely not even close to equitable. Like grain in a time of famine, the immense resources which the nation does in fact possess go not to the child in the gre Ahhh!

Like grain in a time of famine, the immense resources which the nation does in fact possess go not to the child in the greatest need, but to the child of the highest bidder- the child of the parents who, more frequently than not, have also enjoyed the same abundance when they were schoolchildren. Apr 21, Connor Oswald rated it it was amazing Shelves: education-books. In short, sad in , sadder still that little has changed in Apr 05, Patrick rated it really liked it.

Although I agree with the premise that all children should have equal opportunity via material needs, I disagree with his tone in blaming the middle class for "oppressing blacks" for this I give this book 4 stars.

Overall, a good worth it read and eye opening. It is clear that corporate toxic waste is not really free waste that the environment can absorb. Corporations need to be responsible in not polluting US soil in their search for profits. The real sin here is that while corporation plants l Although I agree with the premise that all children should have equal opportunity via material needs, I disagree with his tone in blaming the middle class for "oppressing blacks" for this I give this book 4 stars.

The people are disenfranchised so they do not vote to change their surroundings. It is clear that charter schools are needed in these places so innovation can occur in finding paths to success. It is also clear that these kids need role models to emulate who look like them and preferably someone with similar background.

They have to see a greater why in order to reach for the stars. Teachers pay also need to be creative in seeking how to retain valuable talent. It is a shame that children learn they are not wanted at an early age by their white peers so they have to settle for a second rate education. The school infrastructure needs to be updated so that students are able to thrive in it. As with everyone else, who these children spend time with determine what they become.

So, was it fine that mom forbade us from hanging out with our lower-middle-class neighbors? It is clear having great innovative teachers who care about each of her students success is an important part of these kids education.

It is clear that teacher personality is key to their success not just their methods. Teacher retainment are an important component of what needs to happen in these neighborhoods.

It is also important that the supplies to these schools remain robust. I am for the poorer performing schools to have the greatest leeway for innovation in order for them to succeed. I am for poor people having choice in where they send their children so that schools that are working will be rewarded. It is also clear that parents have to have initiative to have their kids attend a superior school and voting so they influence the make up of the politicians who directly influence their needs.

Along with a choice policy, there has to be a grassroots movement for black empowerment to seek the best education environment for their children so they can demand an equal access to quality education for their children. While it is clear that social class largely determines a child's future, people of privileged should try to level the playing field by mentoring children of lower means who have promise and support policies that will help children level the playing field so that people's potential will truly shine.

Why do Asian place more emphasis on education as a path to success than Hispanics or Black people? Part of the luck of people is being born to the right parents with the right social environment and the right opportunities. Despite the wrong environment that some of the kids are born into, they should at least have a top notch innovative education so they have a way out of their deprived lives. I think mentoring programs are useful in people to see the opportunities in their lives.

Perhaps it's a matter of parental expectation where people who are expected to do well, do better than people with lower expectation. Jonathan states that the fact that people in better schools have the facilities that they desire means they will be disengaged from the political process thereby creating a self-perpetuating cycle. I think that this is where grass-roots community activism can come in, in trying to empower the people to advocate for their children's future. The fact that some of these people need books and do not have the book supplies for a prescribed class is completely appalling.

Also the teacher:student ratio is way out of bounds for a normal school. The teachers complain of a culture of teaching to the test without the necessary learning tools to accomplish the job. The culture of preparing for a test means that the students do not have the necessary critical thinking skills to be successful in college; thus the majority who make it to college drop out.

Teaching to the test also allows a disuse of critical aspect of a subject in favor of teaching to a test. So the love of learning can be destroyed. I am totally for equal opportunity in pursuing an education; the younger a child is the more equal the opportunity for advancement they should have. So that state money should go to shore up the poorest expenditure per capita of schools for the least of its citizens instead of making well off districts richer.

If disadvantaged minorities want change, they have to be politically engaged so their voice will be represented in government. It must be sad being a principal of an elementary school when you know most of the kids you teach are doomed to failure.

While I agree with the basic premise of the book that the public should equalize the children's school supplies for school, I disagree with the premise that it is somehow corporations fault for advertising that causes these kids to steal.

I think that people should really have to participate in the political process in order to see any solutions to their communities. The divisions are institutionalized so that the rich districts do not want to have money to go to poor districts. I think someone who is rich should make a study on a well run school that has resources.

Do their students do better than those without resources? I think this is what charter schools do Kozol state that the fact that states have difficulty balancing their money negatively impacts school districts who are poorer.

So why not have a state-wide school tax to even the playing field so money will not be the whim of legislatures or yearly state finances. So the issue here is that politics enters the equation for the states redistribution of wealth to schools. Instead of having all the money go to school districts who need it, it is evenly redistributed to all districts regardless of need.

I think the minimum foundation should be determined by tests that equate what a normal student of that age should adequately know. Affluent Americans will resist the redistribution of funds to children of the disadvantage. Gang Leader for a Day. Sudhir Venkatesh. Full Body Burden. Kristen Iversen. Floating City. The Book of Life. Barbara Katz Rothman.

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