Savage

I've finally gotten around to reading Savage Inequalities: Children in American Schools by Jonathan Kozol (1992). My sister loaned this book to me over two years ago, and somehow it got buried in another pile of books (imagine that). Since my parents are coming for a visit, I thought that now would be the perfect time to read the book so they could return it to her when they get back home.

This book is a well-written and powerful commentary on the way public education is set up to perpetuate the class system and pay lip-service to the American dream while actually doing little beyond maintaining the status quo. Really pretty depressing, and even though this book was written almost fifteen years ago, basically nothing has really changed in the ways most communities fund public education and the importance the government gives to educating all children, not just their own. If anything, I would guess it has probably gotten worse.

Ick.

Reading this book got me riled up about education, but also made me feel really helpless. Because public schools are so tied up in this institutionalized racism and the black and white world of haves vs. have-nots, I can't see any real way to change it. At least not any way that would work.

Do you have any ideas?

If nothing else, read this book so you can get riled up too (although I feel like this is one of those books that everyone on earth has read except me, so you probably already have).

[And, as mentioned above, we will have visitors for the next few days, so posting will probably be kept to a minimum. Dig.]