This book Jonathan Kozol looks at the public school system throughout the United States. It takes a look at the schools in different cities such as New Jersey, St. Louis, Washington D.C., and Chicago, north Lawndale. I wasn’t shocked to read about the conditions in some of these schools because for the whole semester we have been talking about how American school system in failing but what I am appalled at is how can parent, teacher and the government allowed it to get to the point where we as a society is failing our children, our future leaders. Jonathan Kozol gives a very descriptive and unbiased view at schools in the cities he looks at or compared. He compares schools from the poor side of town to the schools across town where the wealthier children attend. He explains how schools in the very same district receive unequal funds because the districts refuse to invest money into the very places that need it the most.
Jonathan recalls his first time teaching. He began to teach in 1964 in Boston in a segregate school so crowded and so poor that it could not provide my fourth grade children with a classroom. He recalls the effects of teaching in such crowded setting and he show that it reflected in the first test he gave his class. He explains that most of his students were reading at the second grade level and math skills were at first grade level. I guess that exam had an impact on how Jonathan urges Jonathan to become a better teacher and how to look at ways of improving the American school system. With all being said I don’t think that Jonathan Kozol gives us a proper solution to dealing with failing school but he has open our eyes to what happening to the deteriorating school system. Hopefully with all this educational system attacks being under attack and is being exploited in the news today, government, administration, teachers, parents and even student can come up with a proper solution to improving the school environment and educational system.
Video: Interview with the author Jonathan Kozol : Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN1v31R1VPE&feature=relatedk
