The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America |  | Author: Jonathan Kozol
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
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Rating:  57 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 432
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Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 1400052459
Dewey Decimal Number: 379.2630973
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Product Description
Over the last 15 years, the state of inner-city public schools has been in a steep and continuing decline. Since the federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, segregation of black children has reverted to its highest level since 1968. In many inner-city schools, a stick-and-carrot method of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons is now used with students. Meanwhile, as high-stakes testing takes on pathological and punitive dimensions, liberal education has been increasingly replaced by culturally barren and robotic methods of instruction that would be rejected out of hand by schools that serve the mainstream of society.
Filled with the passionate voices of children, principals, and teachers, and some of the most revered leaders in the black community, The Shame of the Nation pays tribute to those undefeated educators who persist against the odds, but directly challenges the chilling practices now being forced upon our urban systems by the Bush administration. In their place, Kozol offers a humane, dramatic challenge to our nation to fulfill at last the promise made some 50 years ago to all our youngest citizens.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
 Class, Race and Willful ignorance September 28, 2005
N. Richardson (Los Angeles, California United States)
87 out of 101 found this review helpful
It is noted that those who make the choice to attack the book on the basis of their own ideological biases, seem to have serious problems with honesty (they didn't actually read the book) or exhibit for all the world to see that they are unable to grasp a fairly simple thesis: that segregation in our public schools damages children.
Jonathan Kozol has spent the last forty something years observing on a first hand basis the tragedy of how our educational system has failed those who might most benefit from going to clean, well-equipped schools, where every child has a desk, a chair and materials....as well as a decently trained professional educator dedicated to imparting knowledge to them.
It is one thing to blame the poor for their conditions, it is quite another to consign small children to rotten schools on the basis of their luck in not being born into the right race or class. It would seem the only compassion worthy of the conservatives who write reviews for books they can't be bothered to read is feeling sorry for a failed scheme like No Child Left Behind. That, and gratuious attacks on teachers unions. Talk radio propaganda< however, is not a good foundation for book criticism.
Kozol, a man of extraordinary decency and insight into the inequities of our educational system, doesn't base his theories on statistics and thinktank framing. He goes into the schools he writes about, and talks to the kids who are consigned to them, the teachers who have to make do with impossible conditions, and parents fighting for their kids.
Kozol just reports what he sees, and writes movingly and gracefully about those who will pay the price of the criminal neglect our society seems to think is acceptable. The stories he tells are heartbreaking. And that there is no escaping the shame that those attack this book, clearly without reading it, would feel if they weren't so firmly invested in escaping the accountability and responsibility, which the last time I checked were supposed to be Conservative Values.
Nobody wants to see or hear this September 27, 2005
Avid Reader
41 out of 47 found this review helpful
A compelling look at the disparity in our educational system. In some parts of this country there is a disparity in annual expenditure per pupil WITHIN THE SAME CITY of $9,000. Nearly every city has an unacceptable disparity. The poor in this nation stay poor because they are denied an equal chance to better themselves - starting at age 5.
The money spent on the bogus No Child Left Behind could and should instead be spent to level the playing field for all students.
Ignoring poverty and blaming the poor is all too popular in America these days, but how can a child escape the cycle of poverty if they don't have the same access to education?
I don't believe that anyone could actually have read this book and still believe that the poor in America are poor because they don't try as hard as the rest of us. The better-off keep these people down by refusing to educate them.
No Child Left Behind is a sham. I know: I work for a software company that makes the tests, scores them, and supports the teachers and administrators who administer these tests. It is simple window dressing by the current administration. I have yet to meet a teacher, administrator or parent who believes NCLB accomplishes a thing for the students. The teachers already KNOW which kids are underperforming. Race and poverty are the biggest predictors of NCLB test scores. Duh! The money being spent to show what is already known could be spent to improve the worst public schools. We waste money measuring students to find out what we already know, instead of spending money to improve their education.
The Fercockt Shanda of the Nation December 29, 2005
My Uncle Stu (Boston)
31 out of 37 found this review helpful
Bottom line, he is right. Shame on us. Not that guilt in and of itself accomplishes anything, but it is important to not just realize how things are, but to realize how unaware we permit ourselves to be on a day-to-day basis. There's little in this book that is shocking on its, but the gravity of situation as it stands is shocking. It is shocking to realize that, not only are we still segregated all these years after 1954's Brown and Board decision, but worse, as Kozol points out, we even fall laughably short of the archaic "separate but equal" standard claimed in the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson case. We are, for all intents and purposes, separate and unequal. There's plenty of shame to go around, but I like it when Kozol shines the light on our media. We are so poorly served by our media, by our news programs. And that's an important point, because, on an individual basis, we are decent people who do care and we would not accept the current situation if we were really forced to be aware and focused.
The news media these days, the legitimate ones that really pretend to be unbiased, believe in covering both sides of a story by presenting sound bites from people on the two extremes of any issues. There is no in depth analysis or critical thought. On the issue of segregated schools, the news media refers to urban schools as being "diverse." These are schools that are approaching 99% minority students. Kozol points out that "diverse" is now the accepted term for segregated.
I could go off on a tangent about the news media. In fact, I think I will. I still think back to the Republican convention of '04, after Bush gave his speech, and one of the so-called serious, so-called legitimate national network anchors followed the speech by saying, "you can disagree with his politics, but you can't doubt his conviction in his beliefs." Really? That's unbiased analysis? I very much doubt the sincerity of his stated beliefs on the grounds that his actions have very little Christian compassion in them. I know that's off the point, but I see the problems outlined so clearly by Kozol as being part of a much bigger problem, and the whole thing is perpetuated by a culture in which we are pandered to by government and media, and nobody calls on us to look closely at things, to question things. To be critical thinkers. To be self-critical. Actually, this is not off the point at all, because Bush's No Child Left Behind plan is as sleazy and dishonest as anything else from his shameful legacy. A shanda!
As far as whether the segregation is along class or race lines, I don't see the point of arguing one versus the other. It's multifactorial, but it all comes down to who has the power and who doesn't, and the natural tendency of the system to perpetuate itself.
This is an important book. It's human nature to want to look the other way, to not want to grapple with shame. But now you can't. If you're even reading reviews of this book, you should buy it and read it. Read it with an open mind.
Now gay ga zinta hate.
How Children Continue to Suffer Without Proper & Safe Education & How to Equalize it September 14, 2005
Barbara Rose (BornToInspire.com)
29 out of 37 found this review helpful
Jonathan Kozol wrote a compelling and pivotal account of America's forgotten children. Those stuck in under funded, un-safe, and insidiously disadvantaged in equal education compared to children who have personal lap top computers, the best books, and safest learning conditions. This book is a vital call to equalize the educational methods as well as equalizing the distribution of funds to all school age children.
It opens the doors for direly needed changes so that each child receives equal education as an equal American citizen. The accounts in this book will open your heart to call for equalization rather than segregation based on economic conditions for our nation's children. This book can very well be a strong catalyst for revamping educational policies, distribution of funding, and to give each child the chance to attain the highest education possible which will end the cycle of poverty. A gripping account and a 10 Star book for positive changes to take place!
Barbara Rose, author of Stop Being the String Along: A Relationship Guide to being THE ONE and if God Was Like Man
Editor, inspire! magazine
Well written and informative November 13, 2005
Will H. (new york,)
16 out of 20 found this review helpful
What could be a more important topic at this juncture in American history than the education of our children. It's not an overstatement to say that this is a very alarming book. Jonathan Kozol is a very talented writer, but beyond that he's a very passionate and committed individual. He shares his experiences and insightful observations with great clarity and compassion. His voice is never shrill, his comments never exaggerated. He comes across as a thorough researcher and keen visionary and I admit I share his point of view. Of course there will be those who attempt to discourage any discourse on the subject he writes so eloquently about. You will hear the hysterical screams of LIBERAL, SOCIALIST, and the like coming from familiar quarters, but the questions posed in this book rise far above all the rhetorical nonsense.
No one can deny that the economic divide in this country is growing wider, or that poverty is a present or looming reality for more and more people. Government spending on programs to help the poor out of poverty are rapidly disappearing. Some look at past failures and conclude that government poverty programs are a waste of money. In order to come to that conclusion though one cannot look to carefully, one must rely on sound bites from ideologues. A careful examination of government poverty programs will reveal successes as well as failures, which, in a compassionate and caring environment, would not mean giving in to irrational feelings of hopelessness. In a compassionate and caring environment the successes would be built upon and used instructively to help correct mistakes and move forward, rather than retreating to old ignorant and prejudice notions of the poor being beyond help or undeserving of it. It is these very notions I feel strongly are the reasons behind the attacks on public education. Behind all the smoke screens that hid for so many years the slow deterioration of the system until it had finally reached a low point where it could be assessed a complete and utter failure in need of dismantling and rebuilding in an Orwellian style. A style that harkens back to a century ago when working class people had few rights. This is all to apparent throughout the book and the connections between the business establishment and this new form of education are frightening to say the least.
Public education is perhaps the most important anti poverty program this nation has ever had. Even more importantly though education is the protector of democracy. Soldiers and weapons can only protect our freedoms from attacks beyond our boarders, what protects our freedoms from within is an educated, free thinking populace. If we turn education for those at the lower end of our social and economic system into nothing more than training for menial labor than I ask, what is to become of our democracy? Will it slowly fade until finally, without much notice, one day the great experiment has become unrecognizable. It doesn't take much in the way of forethought or imagination to understand that a democracy can not exist where there is no room for it to grow. And it has always grown, like so many other living things, from the bottom upwards. So we can blame the immigrants who don't speak english, or the black folks in the ghettos, or poor rural whites in trailer parks. We can say using tax dollars to create opportunities through proper education instead of the systematic destruction of the creative spirit and intelligence that Mr. Kozol writes of, we can say it's all liberal nonsense. Or we can at last remove our heads from the sand and open up a dialogue in the hopes that we can make informed decisions and come up with creative solutions to build a viable public school system. Without which the future of this democracy looks very bleak indeed.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
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