Word: kozol
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...forces of equity have now been joined by a powerful voice: that of education gadfly Jonathan Kozol, author of a galvanizing new book, Savage Inequalities (Crown; $20). After two years of research, Kozol has written a searing expose of the extremes of wealth and poverty in America's school system and the blighting effect on poor children, especially those in cities. In public schooling, he argues, social policy during the Reagan-Bush era "has been turned back almost 100 years...
From San Antonio to New York City's South Bronx, Kozol observes, inner-city schools are bleak fortresses with rotting classrooms and few amenities to inspire or motivate the young. A history teacher at East St. Louis' Martin Luther King Jr. High School, he notes, has 110 students in four classes, and only 26 books. Every year, says a teacher in a nearby school, "there's one more toilet that doesn't flush, one more drinking fountain that doesn't work, one more classroom without texts...
...painful detail, Kozol describes such inner-city schools as Morris High in the South Bronx, where water cascades down the stairways when it rains, and Chicago's Du Sable High, where the chemistry teacher uses a popcorn popper as a Bunsen burner. Kozol juxtaposes these images with descriptions of the luxurious facilities in nearby wealthy suburbs like Winnetka, north of Chicago. Its New Trier High has, among other things, seven gyms, rooms for fencing, wrestling and dance instruction, and an Olympic-size pool...
...Kozol and many activist reformers, the chief villain of the education tragedy is "local control," America's decentralized system of school administration and its heavy reliance on property taxation. Everything from pencils to teachers' salaries is paid for through a patchwork process that varies from state to state. But in most cases, about 6% of the money in any district comes from Washington, 47% from the state government and 47% from locally generated property taxes. Kozol believes the best way to improve schools -- all schools -- would be to do away completely with the property tax as a source of revenue...
...growing ranks of panhandlers, many experts agree, is the desperate shortage of affordable housing. In eight years the federal housing budget has plunged from $33 billion to about $13 billion. "Forced to choose between housing and food, many of these families were soon driven to the streets," explains Writer Kozol. Six million households now pay at least half of their incomes for rent; for many of them, homelessness is just one paycheck away. Says Joe Carreras, a senior housing planner with the Southern California Association of Governments: "Once you fall out of the housing market, you're sliding down...