Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol

Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol

In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol documents the devastating inequalities in American schools, focusing on public education’s “savage inequalities” between affluent districts and poor districts. From 1988 till 1990, Kozol visited schools in over thirty neighborhoods, including East St. Louis, the Bronx, Chicago, Harlem, Jersey City, and San Antonio. Kozol describes horrifying conditions in these schools. He spends a chapter on each area, and provides a description of the city and a historical basis for the impoverished state of its school. These schools, usually in high crime areas, lack the most basic needs. Kozol creates a scene of rooms without heat, few supplies or text, labs with no equipment, sewer backups, and toxic fumes. Schools from New York to California where not only are books rationed, but also toilet paper and crayons. Many school buildings turn into swamps when it rains and must be closed because sewage often backs up into kitchens and cafeterias.

Kozol’s descriptions of the schools help to instill the feeling of hopelessness and destitution that the children in these areas not only feel in their education but in their everyday lives as well. By describing the deteriorating conditions of the schools in the selected areas against those in the more affluent districts, he implies that money is the short-term fix to the problem. Money may fix the roof or the walls but more then just money needs to be put into these schools. Kozol writes with the intention to shock his readers with graphic details, and push them towards change.

Kozol describes the enormous differences between poor schools, and affluent schools, usually located just minutes apart. When speaking of a North Lawndale kindergarten class of twenty three, he states that in twelve years fourteen will have dropped out of school, only four will go to college, and three of the twelve boys will have spent time in prison. A school in the South Bronx is set in a windowless skating rink next to a mortuary with class size up to thirty-five. The school contains a library of only seven hundred books and no playground. This school is ninety- percent black and Hispanic. Only a few minutes north of that school Kozol visits another school in a more affluent part of the Bronx with an overwhelmingly white and Asian population. Flowering...

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... national program that is helping inner city, or underprivileged children. Head Star is an U.S. federally funded, educational program for disadvantaged pre-school children. It was established under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. The program is aimed at preparing poor children for elementary school. The Head Start program is set up to meet the individual needs of every child in the classroom. Head Start provides medical services to low-income families, to prevent health problems to go on undiagnosed. Head Start encourages parent involvement inside and outside of the classroom. Head Start also provides services that assist families in need. Activities included are community outreach, referrals, and emergency assistance and intervention.

These programs as well as the many after-school and enrichment programs offer some desperately needed assistance. Although this is a good beginning, a lot more needs to be done before real improvement is made. The educational systems in America have many faults, but if more people become aware, things can only improve. I believe that we can change things, and with time maybe equal education for everyone won’t be just a far away dream.