When they return next year, where do I put them? Clinics in the private hospitals are far more likely to be staffed by an experienced physician.”. Again, there are no windows. Their parents may take them to the theater, to museums.…”, In my notes: “Six girls, four boys. If someone grows up in the South Bronx, he’s not going to be prone to learn.” His name is Max and he has short black hair and speaks with confidence. Two years ago, in order to meet this and other problems, New York City’s Office of School Safety started buying handcuffs. Many of these problems, says the press again, may be attributed to inefficiency and certain very special bureaucratic difficulties in the New York City system. Spilled on the floor beside my feet are several boxes that contain a “Regents Action Plan” for New York City’s schools. ”, At three o’clock the nurse arrives to do her record-keeping. 1$
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Ğ p@à°€P ğ! To the degree, moreover, that destructive family situations may be bettered by the future acts of government, no one expects that this could happen in the years immediately ahead. Add to this the squalor of the setting and the ever-present message of a child’s racial isolation, and we have in place an almost perfect instrument to guarantee that we will need more handcuffs and, no doubt, more prisons. As in every room at P.S. The poorer public schools have inadequate equipment, supplies, textbooks, counselors, and libraries. “I have a pain in my tooth,” she says. Throw out the kids who cause you trouble. “I don’t see how that benefits me,” she says. These children who needed more from the educational system in order to catch up academically with the rich schools received less. Including those who drop out during junior high—numbers not included in the dropout figures offered by the New York City Board of Education—it may be that roughly half of New York City’s children do not finish school. “How long will it be,” I ask, “before white children and black and Hispanic children in New York will go to the same schools?”. When it was pointed out that schools in Riverdale, as a result, had twice the number of computers in proportion to their student populations as the schools in the poor neighborhoods, the chairman of the local board replied, “What is fair is what is determined … to be fair.”, The superintendent of District 10, Fred Goldberg, tells the New York Times that “every effort” is made “to distribute resources equitably.” He speculates that some gap might exist because some of the poorer schools need to use funds earmarked for computers to buy basic supplies like pens and paper. Praise for Savage Inequalities “I was unprepared for the horror and shame I felt. In the poor New York City schools Kozol found that the average spending in 1987 per student was $5,500 compared to $11,000-$15,000 in the suburbs and affluent areas. Public School 261, an elementary school in North Bronx, is housed in a former skating rink. Nationwide, black children are three times as likely as white children to be placed in classes for the mentally retarded but only half as likely to be placed in classes for the gifted: a well-known statistic that should long since have aroused a sense of utter shame in our society. She’s an interesting girl and I reluctantly admire her for being so straightforward. The speaker’s voice is strong and filled with longing. I can be as open-minded and unrealistic as I want to be. Let’s be honest. “Hey, it’s like a welfare hospital! Later he says, “It’s quite remarkable how much these children see. How does a child simply “disappear” in New York City? We don’t know how many children will succeed in it, but we intend to try. “Oh … they neglect these children,” says the driver. ¶ A few, maybe. . [In his newest book, Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities, exposes the shameful levels of segregation and inequality present in U.S. schools. “You can take them out of the environment, but you can’t take the environment out of them. Teacher’s salaries and the quality of curriculum were lower in the poor districts. Five years ago, I’m told, there were approximately 500 freshman students in the school. Some of the most stunning inequality, according to a report by the Community Service Society, derives from allocations granted by state legislators to school districts where they have political allies. If they didn’t count on it, perhaps it wouldn’t happen. The “special” class I enter first, by way of contrast, has twelve children of whom only one is white and none is Asian. chapter 3 The Savage Inequalities of Public Education in New York “In a country where there is no distinction of class,” Lord Acton wrote of the United States 130 years ago, “a child is not born to the station of its parents, but with an indefinite claim to all the prizes that can be won by thought and labor. “If society gave a damn about these children,” says the teacher, “they wouldn’t let this happen.” These are the same conditions I observed in Boston’s segregated schools a quarter-century ago. The Caloosa Belle and speakers from health agencies often state that Hendry County has the highest teen pregnancy rate and is among the highest unemployment rate in the state of Florida. “If you don’t, as an American, begin to give these kids the kind of education that you give the kids of Donald Trump, you’re asking for disaster.”. Textbooks are scarce and children have to share their social studies books. The funds are still not enough to provide the poor children buildings, teachers, materials, and educational opportunities equal to communities with more wealth. Riverdale, I learn, has been the residence of choice for many years to members of the diplomatic corps. In a three-block area we have a public library, a park, a junior high.… Our typical sixth grader reads at eighth grade level.” In a quieter voice he says, “I see how hard my colleagues work in schools like P.S. Nothing I have said within this book should leave the misimpression that I do not think these factors are enormously important. The excellence of P.S. P.S. The last time it toured America was 1976.… The Don Cossacks will be in New York City for two weeks at the Neil Simon Theater. Nearly 120 children and adults are doing what they can to make the best of things: 80 children in four kindergarten classes, 30 children in the sixth grade class, and about eight grown-ups who are aides and teachers. If there’s a war, we have to fight. Knowing one is ruined is a powerful incentive to destroy the learning opportunities for other children, and the consequence in many schools is nearly uncontrollable disruption. The schools of Great Neck are “doing well” by those who will someday employ them. “Placement of these kids,” the principal explains, “can usually be traced to neurological damage.”, In my notes: “How could so many of these children be brain-damaged?”. The schools of the South Bronx—not many, but a few at least—are “doing well” by future typists, auto mechanics, office clerks and factory employees. Among black children in East Harlem, it is even higher: 42 per thousand, which would be considered high in many Third World nations. It’s not a hospital that I will use if I am given any choice. That’s one reason that we moved. Of 200 kindergarten children, 50 maybe get some kind of preschool.”. But it is all in ruins. She hesitates a bit as I take out my pen, but then goes on: “I’ll give you an example. “Big fat ugly things with hairs,” says Victor. There were inequalities in buildings, teachers, computers, and books. Then you come back home and see that these are things you do not have. These problems include inequalities in funding, facilities, materials, educational opportunities, and staff in poor schools. I don’t earn the money. Built of handsome gray stone and set in a landscaped campus, it resembles a New England prep school. One of the children, a Puerto Rican girl, looks haggard. “A child identified as a chronic truant,” reports an official of the Rheedlen Foundation, a child welfare agency in New York City, “might be reported by the teacher—or he might not. 24, according to the principal, adds to the value of these homes. “We pull them out of mainstream classes on the basis of their test results and other factors such as the opinion of their teachers. She tells me that Tri-Logic is her father’s firm. The mural above the proscenium arch could be restored. His solo, on a battered Baldwin, brings the students to their feet. “We don’t have encyclopedias in classrooms,” she replies. “This is your homework,” says the teacher. One such argument is made by the sociologist and writer Nathan Glazer. There is the sense that they were skating over ice and that the issues we addressed were safely frozen underneath. Savage Inequalities By Gene Lyons Updated October 18, 1991 at 04:00 AM EDT The buildings aren’t as attractive as those in more affluent communities. In Savage Inequalities, Kozol delivers a searing examination of the extremes of wealth and poverty and calls into question the reality of equal opportunity in our nation’s schools. Average expenditures per pupil in the city of New York in 1987 were some $5,500. The room resembles an Elizabethan theater. “Head Start,” the principal says, “scarcely exists in District 10. She is now in treatment. It defuses anger at injustice and replaces it with irritation at bureaucracy. The library is a tiny, windowless and claustrophobic room. Both are first grade classes. The existence of the school is virtually concealed within this crowded city block. Why should the Board of Ed allow this? 261, according to my notes, there was a domelike space that had been built to hold a planetarium, but the planetarium had been removed to free up space for the small library collection. Some mornings, fallen chips of paint cover classrooms like snow.… Teachers and students have come to see humor in the waterfall that courses down six flights of stairs after a heavy rain.”. She tells me she is here three days a week. Clark was once on the cover of Time magazine and whom U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett praised. In a student lounge, a dozen seniors are relaxing on a carpeted floor that is constructed with a number of tiers so that, as the principal explains, “they can stretch out and be comfortable while reading.”. Nine white, one Chinese. A 15-year-old girl with curly long red hair and many freckles reads the lines. The reputation of the schools, in turn, adds to the value of their homes, and this, in turn, expands the tax base for their public schools. There seems to be no ventilation system, or, if one exists, it isn’t working. The kindergarten children sitting on the worn rug, which is patched with tape, look up at me and turn their heads to follow me as I walk past them. Schools like Morris High, in contrast, says the New York Times, tend to be “most overcrowded” and have “the highest dropout rates” and “lowest scores.” In addition, we read, they receive “less money” per pupil. Students who don’t respond to ordinary classes may surprise us, and surprise themselves, when they are asked to step out on a stage. File cabinets and movable blackboards give a small degree of isolation to each class. The window is broken. Home to many of the city’s most sophisticated and well-educated families, its elementary schools have relatively few low-income students. Residences in the area—some of which are large, free-standing houses, others condominiums in solid redbrick buildings—sell for prices in the region of $400,000; but some of the larger Tudor houses on the winding and tree-shaded streets close to the school can cost up to $1 million. Two thirds of the stained-glass panes are missing and replaced by Plexiglas. I’d have a chance to track them down, go to their homes, see them on the weekends.… I don’t understand why people in New York permit this.”. We need smaller classes but, to do this, we would need more space. A student with a small trimmed beard and mustache stands to do a solo on the saxophone. Kozol learns later that there are a number of Hispanic students and 1 or 2 percent black attending the school. “That is for the suburbs.”, The school, I am told, has 26 computers for its 1,300 children. When I first moved to LaBelle six years ago I felt as if I had moved to a “Third World” country. So you speak of violence and hope that it will scare the city into action.”, While we talk, three children who look six or seven years old come to the door and ask to see the nurse, who isn’t in the school today. Every child needs to be given the opportunity to succeed in school. Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. I don’t think I’ll live to see it happen.”. I have to bus some 60 kindergarten children elsewhere, since I have no space for them. But managerial dilemmas never quite suffice to justify these failures. Stark as the inequities in District 10 appear, educators say that they are “mild” in comparison to other situations in the city. The parents of these children want the same things for their children that the parents in the suburbs want. The ceiling is crossed by wooden ribs; there are stained-glass windows in the back. But, like the often costly salvage programs of teen-age remediation for the children we have first denied the opportunity for health care, then for preschool, then for equal education, these special wards for damaged infants are provisions of obligatory mercy which are needed only as a consequence of our refusal to provide initial justice.”, Health officials sometimes fend off criticism of this nature by assuring us that better facilities or more elaborate surgical procedures offered to rich patients do not necessarily pay off in every case, just as we are often told that higher funding for the schools attended by more affluent children does not necessarily imply superior education. Whether such courage or such vision will someday become transcendent forces in our nation is by no means clear. An apparent obligation of officials in these situations is to shelter the recipients of privilege from the potential wrath of those who are less favored. The author interviews, Delabian Rice-Thurston who discusses visiting a number of poor D.C. schools, which were “92 percent black, 4 percent white, and 4 percent Hispanic and some other ethnics.” (Kozol p.184) Crime and drugs are part of the ghetto community. Reaction
How long will these conditions be allowed to continue in any school in our nation? We are badly overcrowded. The principal says that all the elementary schools in District 10 were given the same planetariums ten years ago but that certain schools, because of overcrowding, have been forced to give them up. They had little hope of receiving the academic opportunities to equip them to rise above the filth, crime, and poverty in their communities. Sara Rimer of the New York Times pegged the rate of those who do not graduate at 46 percent in 1990—a figure that seems credible because it is consistent with the numbers for most other cities with large nonwhite student populations. There were 26 computers for 1,300 children who are 90 percent black and Hispanic and 10 percent Asian, White, or Middle Eastern. Plaster is still falling from the walls. Questioned about differences in physical appearances between the richer and the poorer schools, he says, “I think it’s demographics.”, Sometimes a school principal, whatever his background or his politics, looks into the faces of the children in his school and offers a disarming statement that cuts through official ambiguity. I am told that he did not intend to pay it back. In May of 1990 he is facing final exams, but, because the school requires students to pass in their textbooks one week prior to the end of the semester, he is forced to study without math and English texts. Why should we pour money in, when they are wasting what they have?”, I ask him, “Have we any obligations to poor people?”, “I don’t think the burden is on us,” says Jennifer again. Most shameful is the fact that no such outrage can be stirred in New York City. Mrs. Hawkins used her own money to provide materials and supplies for her classroom. I have no room. And, in comment on the Board of Education’s final statement—“the inequity is clear”—the CSS observes, “New York City’s poorest … districts could adopt that eloquent statement with few changes.”. It would be a shorter ride to Riverdale. He wants to spread his wings.”, The teacher asks the children what the poet means or what the imagery conveys. Their 26 faces are turned up to watch their teacher, an elderly black woman. You think of the difference. They understand.”, On the following morning I visit P.S. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools is a book written by Jonathan Kozol that examines the American educational system and the inequalities that exist between poor inner-city schools and more affluent suburban schools. The children sing a song: “Lift Every Voice.” On the wall are these handwritten words: “Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.”. The class is writing a new “Bill of Rights.” The children already know the U.S. Bill of Rights and they explain its first four items to me with precision. download 2 files . 94 in District 10, where 1,300 children study in a building suitable for 700, the gym has been transformed into four noisy, makeshift classrooms. I ask the students if they can explain the reasons for the physical condition of the school.