Savage+Inequalities

Return to Book Summaries Savage Inequalities, by Jonathon Kozol


 * Summary:**

Savages Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol, begins with the depiction of what education and life in general was like for people growing up on the Mississippi in East St. Louis, Illinois. During the middle to late 1900s, black Americans faced horrific and life threatening problems in the city in which they lived. Sewage problems, disease, poverty, violence and discrimination were part of their everyday lives and also affected the educational system. Classrooms were short of necessary materials and textbooks, sewage overflowed into the classrooms and teachers lived on salaries of about $10,000 a year. Gaining an appropriate education was hardly an option for black students and often times they were left with the choice to either complete high school in hopes of employment opportunities in fast food places or to face the fact that life's' struggles will not be eradicated and simply drop out of school. In the end, however, whatever option they chose was not enough to rid their lives of obstacles and despair. Chapter two discusses and compares the impoverished conditions of South Chicago. In visiting elementary classrooms of various schools and speaking to people such as principals, teachers and students, the author finds little optimism in such sad situations. One thoroughly discussed issue is that of advisor to student ratios, and the common discouragement of following one’s dreams in inner city schools such as these. Money is also a topic of discussion, particularly comparisons of dollar to student ratio, government funding, taxes and teacher salary contrasting between these low class schools and neighboring middle to upper class districts. These numbers correlate to the drop out rates and failure expectations. The author then visits nearby upper-class elementary schools and discovered that the general opinion was that of poor children as a threat to the success and wealth of middle-class children. In reality, Kozol notes, it is more likely that the high achieving kids will bring the other up. In speaking with students of Chicago’s inner city schools, there is an overwhelming sense of vulnerability, little opportunity to get ahead, and few choices which inevitably result in self worthlessness. Additionally, this chapter shows a strong connection of poverty to race. In conclusion, Kozol remarks that race, class and caste remain the basis for extreme inequality of educational opportunity, particularly in this chapter, of low class children living in Southern Chicago. Kozol then describes the social, racial, and economical injustices in New York public education system. He describes dissolute schools like PS 79 where there are over crowded classrooms, lack of school supplies, and hardly any funding for school repairs. He then compares PS 79’s conditions to PS 29, which is under the same school district, but has excessive amounts of funding and spacious and well equipped classrooms. He discovers that the students from PS 29 are richer and they get better funding then the PS 79 whose students come from poorer families. Kozol comes to the sad realization that the rich can afford the necessary assets for a sufficient education while the poor remain segregated in dwindling public schools, struggling to learn under unbearable circumstances. The author Jonathan Kozol disagrees with the Wall Street Journal and upper middle class society on the importance of money in the educational system**.** The children in Camden are suffering not only in their lack of a decent education but because of their environment as well. The educational system as well as the legal court system are all turning a blind eye to the impoverished communities that they are blatantly leaving behind. Even the supreme court ruled in a judgment that stated "that education currently offered in these poorer districts is tailored to the students' present need and that these students simply cannot now benefit for the kind of vastly superior course offering found in richer districts"(170). It is unbelievable to imagine that our own justice system could make a ruling that blatantly says you are what you are, you've been born into this impoverished state and no amount of education or monetary support will change that. Rich districts are merely scared of the demise of their own situation if they attempt to level the playing field for impoverished districts like that of Camden, and are willing to blatantly lie and say that money will be of no help to these students, when it is money that they are in fact using as the excuse and fuel for their own fight. Kozol goes on in his discussion, about the stereotypes of poorer schools against richer schools. When a girl is asked why she thinks the richer school is better, she says she does not know, she does not have the facts. This reinforces the idea of richer looking schools having a better education. Kozol also depicts the location of the less wealthy schools as being next to "pipe houses" or abandoned houses used or selling drugs. The location and appearance of poorer schools often brings the moral of students and teachers down, which impacts their learning. One student said that the school needs to be made pretty, look nicer. Kozol’s idea is that students know that they are the poorer kids and therefore assume that they are receiving less of an education. He then exemplifies the situation in chapter six with incidents in which people essentially attempt to outlaw inequality. We know inequality is unfair, but in our minds we need it because we have been taught to follow a social class [|Ruby888] system.


 * Key Passages**:

“To be in favor of “good” families” or of “good administration” does not take much courage or originality. It is hard to think of anyone who is opposed to either. To be in favor of redistribution of resources and of racial integration would require a great deal of courage—and a soaring sense of vision—in a president or any other politician. Whether such courage or such vision will someday become transcendent forces in our nation is by no means clear” (124)

“Equal funding for unequal needs is not equality” p54

“Is it possible that the defendant in these cases do not sense the irony,” she asks, “of spending so much money to obtain the services of experts to convince the court that money isn’t the real issue? These contradictions do not seem to trouble them at all. But do they really ask us to believe that laws of economics, which control all other aspects of our lives in this society, somehow cease to function at the school house door? Do they think poor people will believe this?”(174)


 * Key Terminology:**


 * Per-pupil spending**-Spending per primary school student (per $ GDP). The amount of money spent per student in each respective school district


 * Head Start-** is a program of the [|__United States Department of Health and Human Services__] that focuses on assisting children from low-income families. Created in 1965, Head Start is the longest-running program for stopping the cycle of poverty in the United States. It provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families


 * Egalitarian**-someone who beholds the belief that each person should have social, economic and political equality [|คาสิโน].