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Summary: A must-read for all teachers and parents
Review: This astonishing book is still relevant--if anything, the problems Kozol researched in the late 1980s are worse today. As the general gap between rich and poor widens in America, so does the gap between rich schools and poor schools, helping to perpetuate permanent class divisions. Kozol shows how public education helps insure that "them that's got shall get" and "them that's not shall lose." His study is especially useful if you're trying to understand the recent wave of school funding legislation at the state level across the country. In state after state, school funding based on property taxes has been declared unconstitutional, as it creates schools that are inherently separate and unequal. (See the deRolphe decision in my home state of Ohio, for example. Savage Inequalities was a direct inspiration for the documentary Children in America's schools, which in turn helped inspire the activists who pushed the deRolphe suit.) Here's my highest recommendation: I have all the students in my "English composition for education majors" course read Savage Inequalities as preparation for the realities of teaching in public schools.
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Summary: This book made me weep.
Review: I was required to read this book in my secondary ed. program, while training to be a teacher four years ago. Kozol's relentless and straightforward protrayal of the inequalities in the public schools shook me profoundly... Institutional Rascism at its best. This is a very important book that all parents, educators, and anyone with a conscience should read.
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Summary: Can you spot the logical fallacies?
Review: Kozol has done it again! While the book is very descriptive of the poor conditions in many inner-city schools, Mr. Kozol's thesis--that more government money should be put into education--is not borne by the facts. He presents arguments that are unthoughtful, unacademic, and unsupported. He has a very hysterical knee-jerk response to anyone who is supportive of a free-market approach to education. For those who are fans of Kozol and believe that my review may be too extreme, I refer you to the book "Children of the Revolution", also by Mr. Kozol. The book is little more than an apologia for Fidel Castro's dictatorship, a society with a conception of human rights that would not pass muster in a tribe of Barbary Apes (to borrow P.J. O'Rourke's wholly appropriate phrase.) Is this the sort of society that YOU want?
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Summary: One of the most captivating books I've ever read!
Review: This book is by far one of the most captivating as well as eye opening ones a I've ever read. Kozol describes with startling detail the atrocious inequalities that school children face in low-income neighborhoods. Through personal acounts and interviews, Kozol is able to conveigh, quite convinsingly, just how much stands in the way of inner city children when it comes to getting a proper education and how much middle to upper class children living in suburbs take forgranted in their education. The book is easy to read and Kozols writing style makes it easy for anyone to pick up this book and be both captured with his discussion as well as being able to fully understand everthing he is trying to conveigh in his book. I would recomend this book to anyone who wants to jump into a book and instantly become addicted to it. by, Anthany Robbins
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Summary: A detailed account of the problems low income schools face.
Review: Reading Savage Inequalities took me on an up close and personal tour through the poverty-stricken schools of the inner cities of America. Kozol gives a detailed account of the delapidated schools and the students who attend them. From broken windows to broken dreams, the students of these low-income schools start out at a serious disadvantage. From a shortage of books to a shortage of teachers, Kozol examines every aspect of the disheartning scholastic enviroment the children are expected to prosper in. His descriptions put you right into the stiffling classrooms with the forgotton students. This book is a real eye opener, ecspecially if you went to school in a white middle class suburb. It often shows the contrast between high-class and low-class schools. If educational equality is something America is based on, why do these atrocities in our schools continue to break the spirits of our minority children? Kozol does offer some explaination to how these differences became so out of porportion. He does not offer solutions, but I do not condemn him. This problem is an epidemic in our country and I do not expect one man, let alone one answer to solve this enormous problem.
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Summary: A powerful, thought provoking book.
Review: Jonathan Kozol exposes the inequalities in our public educational system in America today. Does the American dream truly exist for all Americans? I think not according to Kozol's in depth argument. Racism and class are at the root of such great disparities and atrocities. While the middle class to rich are enjoying an excellence in education with buildings adequate to house the pupils, reasonable class sizes, fairly paid teachers, supplies for labs and textbooks for each child, the poor on the other hand are not. They are barely surviving in dilapidated buildings with broken down systems from sewage to heating, inadequate supplies, if any, for labs and classrooms without textbooks. These nonwhite poor students of America are living in oppression without much hope for change. Kozol discusses the effects of segregation on our children, the effects of those who have and those who have not. All the while, the students are painfully aware of the differences. Violence and crime on the rise due to the hopelessness in their futures. The inefficiencies of jurisdiction from the local districts, to the state and to federal level of legislation/mandates keeps the educational system from making substantial changes to provide what these children need. Money being a big player. This book will open your eyes to injustices and stimulate your mind to action.
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Summary: Powerful, a must read!!
Review: This was an awesome book! As a future educator of America I highly recommend this book. After reading this book I felt awakened to the realities of our education system. I knew it was flawed before, but I wouldn't have guessed it was this bad. I have placed this book on my list of ten greatest books I have read. Awesome!!
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Summary: THIS IS REALITY PEOPLE!!!!!
Review: I tip my hat to J. Kozol and his depiction of DAILY life in urban schools. While reading some of the comments and critiques, I noticed some who said "good writing, but.....1) What is really going to change (the cynic), and 2) will more funding help. I work as an educational consultant to poverty stricken schools in the North Eastern part of the US. I see this reality every day: Unfed, undernourished children, deteriorating buildings (where urine reaks from a stalless bathroom), materials that are out of date, and so forth. Will extra funding make a difference? Yes, but $10 million dollars for a quick fix, won't right all of the wrongs of 40 years of neglect. The funding sources must understand that change will happen, but that there are so many issues (buildings, materials, technology) that a step by step plan is needed in order to facilitate change. Proper financing will make a difference, after all, it usually helps schools to get better band equipment, the latest technology, or an addition to a building. Now to answer to statement from "Mesa, AZ" about what can chang....these kids will still be in the same position as before. We as Americans are hypocrites and cynics. We will send money overseas, deal with issues in Tibet, Bejing, and the lot. But there are poor children in the US. When you listen to children explain that their "lights are being cut off" or see them smile at you with teeth that have been unproperly kept, or look up at you when you come into their school and say "are you my tutor?" You realize that this nation has a job to do, and that there are no ifs ands or butts, it must be done. I can tell you from personal experience, Savage Inequalities is true, I see them every week. Let me tell you something else, these children are resilient! They will walk through crime infested situations (daily) just to get to school, because they love to learn. The schools have teachers who lack skills, but have the desire (they just need proper staff development). We owe it to these children every day (not just on an adopt a family holiday), to support legislation, policies, and organizations that will help them. These poor children can make a difference, as the list of names of people who have made it from humbel beginnings can attest. They have become teachers, doctors, mayors, congresspeople, and so on. If this is truly One Nation under GOD indivisable, we will show some compassion, these are CHILDREN for crying out loud. J. Kozol has done his part as a writer and researcher. He has given us a platform for change, and we must answer the call together (voting, volunteering, donating, teaching), or prepare to suffer together. Because the problems of the urban poor will, in time, become the problems of this nation. Most of all, remember that these poor schools contain poor children, and that these children need a chance to live and participate in the American Dream.
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Summary: This book is very good, I would advise everyone to read it!
Review: I am a college student majoring in education and I read "Savage Inequalities" for my education class. I found this book to be very interesting and enjoyable. I have never read any of Jonathan Kozol books, but after reading this one I plan on reading others by him. I think this book is a book everyone should read whether you are majoring in education or not.
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Summary: This book is a real wake-up call!
Review: I am a college student majoring in education and recently read "Savage Inequalities" for a class. Mr. Kozol obviously had the underprivileged children of our nation at heart when he wrote this book. I found the book to be an eye-opening, thought provoking, and heart wrenching account of the way some of America's children are treated in our education system. The author does an outstanding job of painting a very factual, although not so pretty, picture of the disparities these children suffer. Mr. Kozol's descriptions of the inequalities suffered by some of our children today should provoke us to push for change in our education systems. This book is a must read for every educator, future educator, parent, and/or concerned citizen.
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