"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." Kozol
Wow! Just think of all the attacks and arguments over the last few years about health care reform.
"children in one set of schools are educated to be governors; children in the other set of schools are trained for being governed. The former are given the imaginative range to mobilize ideas for economic growth; the latter are provided with the discipline to do the narrow tasks the first group will prescribe." Kozol
There is more than one historical primary source showing this intent by the inventors of our current system of compulsory education despite the current stated aim of No Child Left Behind. The fact we have unequal funding that doesn't adequately address the unequal needs for our poorest students means that the current rhetoric around equality and equal opportunity is simply newspeak.
"when you tell them that the government can't find the money to provide them with a decent place to go to school, they don't believe it and they know that it's a choice that has been made—a choice about how much they matter to society." Kozol
"According to textbook rhetoric, Americans abhor the notion of a social order in which economic privilege and political power are determined by hereditary class...By this standard, education offered to poor children should be at least as good as that which is provided to the children of the upper-middle class." Kozol
"If Americans had to discriminate directly against other people's children, I believe most citizens would find this morally abhorrent. Denial, in an active sense, of other people's children is, however, rarely necessary in this nation. Inequality is mediated for us by a taxing system that most people do not fully understand" Kozol
The advertisements that appeared on this quote's Twitlonger page present an interesting contradiction:
Chapter 4 Children of the City Invincible: Camden, New Jersey
@anderscj anderscj"Affluent people, it has often been observed, seldom lack for arguments to deny others the advantages that they enjoy." Kozol20 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto
"'What is the result? We are preparing a generation of robots. Kids are learning exclusively through rote. They do not learn to think, because their teachers are straitjacketed by tests that measure only isolated skills. As a result, they can be given no electives, nothing wonderful or fanciful or beautiful, nothing that touches the spirit or the soul. Is this what the country wants for its black children?" Kozol
By now I think this applies to more than just this country's black kids. By now I think this concerns the 99%
"In order to get these kids to pass these tests, they've got to be divided up according to their previous test results. This is what is now described as 'homogenous grouping.' In an urban school, the term is a misnomer. What does it do to character? The children in the highest groups become elitist, selfish, and they separate themselves from the other children. We don't call it tracking, no. But tell me that the children in Math I or in Math VI don't know why they are there.'" Kozol
This sounds exactly like the high school I attended in the late 1990's. I graduated from a class of 165, not tiny but certainly not big. We were, however, big enough that in each subject three distinct tracks could be created and it was obvious, blatant, and intentional. This school had no qualms about sorting kids into the college prep AP track, the manual labor track, or the track in between. This was accepted as a fact of life, done in the name of doing whats in the best interest of students. At that time I was on the AP track but a lot of my friends were on the lower track. I, and a few of my friends, were among the very few for whom their social and academic circles overlapped only slightly. I was comfortable among both crowds. This allowed me the ability to see both points of view Kozol describes here in a way most people don't. I knew there was something wrong and phony about the way school did this but I did not have the language or understanding to articulate what it was exactly. So instead this manifested itself in teen angst, slightly deviant behavior, and deep cynicism. Also as a result I ended up being marginally part of many circles but largely an outsider in all of them. I guess not much has changed. But, to quote Lenny Bruce, "You CAN'T shut up the deviant. You NEED the deviant to tell you when you are fucking up!" Perhaps that is my role. At least it is something to aspire to.
"They have learned that education is a brittle, abstract ritual to ready them for an examination. If they get to college they do not know how to think." Kozol
This adolescent life I led with my academic life lived in one circle and my social life lived in another was perhaps a blessing for this very reason. I was not at the top of my class in high school, I was far too non-compliant and principled for that. I got good grades in school but was not afraid to take poor marks for disagreement of opinion. For insisting that what "is" ought to be seen as what "might be" and rejection of anything schooly without sound purpose I was twice denied acceptance into the National Honor Society and kept a safe distance from the top 5% of my graduating class. These two worlds I walked in gave me a more critical eye and awareness of bias and intent I suspect than it gave to most of my fellow classmates in the top of the class. I say this now only after learning that in college most of those top 5% found their courses too difficult and dropped out. I have wondered for a long time how common this is.
@pammoran pammoranlooking forward to your visit to this book RT @anderscj: ----------Kozol--------ch4 Children of the City Invincible: Camden, New Jersey20 days ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
"'This land is your land,' they are told; and, in one of the patriotic songs that children truly love because it summons up so well the goodness and optimism of the nation at its best, they sing of 'good' and 'brotherhood' 'from sea to shining sea.' It is a betrayal of the best things that we value when poor children are obliged to sing these songs in storerooms and coat closets." Kozol
This phrase is perhaps the one from Savage Inequalities that stands out the most for me. I can't tell you how many times in the last few weeks since reading that phrase I've used it, or some derivation of it, myself. This seems especially relevant and fitting for today's national discourse.
@anderscj
14 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto
