By: Erica Pistorino
Posted In: News
Photo credit: Salve Today
On February 26, Jonathan Kozol, respected author and educator, spoke to over 300 attendees of the Salve community on the inequalities that exist in public education today.
Kozol chronicled his journey to sixty public schools in eleven states across the country, only to discover that racial segregation of African American and Latino children still occurs today. In particular, he finds New York as the “epicenter of racial apartheid in America”. If these schools were at least equal then we would have at least lived up to the ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson. However, he insists that we have not even done that. As a result of under funding, these schools have “squalid infrastructure”, basement cafeterias, and great overcrowding. This leads to the degradation of students and staff of the school. These conditions are unacceptable for a democracy. In contrast, schools in financially secure areas consist of aesthetically pleasing buildings located in beautiful areas. Kozol also pointed to the issue school’s focus on standardized tests. This drilling, he insists, is not education. As a result, Kozol has become an activist for the cause. In order to induce reform to bring equality, he insists that we must transform unequal schools, revise the No Child Left Behind Act, and place pressure on politicians to reduce the focus schools place on the tests. Kozol will not give up, he “intend[s] to keep on fighting on this issue until [his] dying day”.
