During the 1960s Boston was a highly segregated state, like many others during that period. Around that same time, Jonathan Kozol witnessed countless events that distinctly showed how, both, adults and children were affected by the extremities of racial and economical segregation. When Kozol began to teach in 1964, he was able to see a clear distinction between the public schools systems in the city and in the suburbs where in the cities children were reading below standard levels due to the fact that they had less access to cultivating forms of literature and had to face the everyday burdens of living under treacherous conditions. Martin Luther King, who was see an influential icon during those years, was quoted time and time again for his “I have a dream” speech yet that dream seemed highly unattainable for anyone who wished for something similar. This vision of black and white children attending school together was unfeasible and seemed to be effaced almost entirely.
This was a time when poor education was a permanent American reality that seemed to be accepted (pg 4). People recognized the flaws attached to segregation but not many did enough to change what was happening. Kozol says that children’s voices were missing from the whole discussion of discrimination yet they were the ones that were mostly affected by death zones and streams of toxicity. There was no sense of life in these places where the state had a business of selling hopes to those who had none.
Further in the book, he discusses his experiences in other states. He sees how many people discuss ways on how the educational system can be improved. Could it be hiring experienced teachers, increasing salaries or a boost of parental influence? Over time, we have discussed in class the numerous factors that affect the education and learning capacities of children. One important element to this puzzle, also discussed in the reading, is the demography of the child, where they live and who else lives around them. There is a great distinction between the quality of education of a poor and rich child where different variables and levels of hindrances can get in the way. To what extent do the demographics change the social and mental characteristics of children? The Department of Education and many state departments of education have begun the process of addressing problems seen in schools with low-achieving students. Since there many different problems within the educational system how do we figure out which problem to tackle first before approaching another?
