Savage Inequalities

So I went to see Jonathan Kozol speak at Cornell last week, and it was pretty fantastic. I have read one of his books, The Shame of the Nation, and figured his talk was going to be a super-depressing, statistic-packed diatribe against racism and the resegregation of American public schools. The talk turned out to be very anecdotal and almost as funny as depressing. I learned a lot about the man himself, his roots in the civil rights movement, his roots as a High School English teacher, and his family. The recording that I got seems to be pretty good, I got really good seats and sat almost directly under the PA system in the high,vaulted ceiling. At 4:15 maybe an hour or so before he went on, the place was nearly empty. Courtney and I waltzed down to our ideal seats like we were 20 minutes early for Flubber , but by 5 the place was packed and by the time Kozol actually went on at 5:10 or so there were people standing all over the aisles. My girlfriend and I estimated that there were far more women than men there, like maybe 3:1 or at least 2:1, and not too many African-Americans. His talk went a little over an hour and there was no time for question and answer afterwards.

The biggest thing that I got out of the lecture was a renewed interest in Teach-for-America or a related program. My primary objective as a teacher is to make a difference and I think starting in poor underprivileged communities is a great way to do that. It is certainly not for everyone, it might not even be for me. But the greatest injustices that we as Americans serve to our fellow Americans comes in the form of school segregation, inequitable funding strategies, and depriving millions of young children of the opportunity to a sound education simply because of their income level or skin color. Kozol believes that universal education should be guaranteed to each and every American as a fundamental right, to be included even in the Bill of Rights. And I for one, agree with him. If these inner-city schools are never funded appropriately they are far less likely to attract the kinds of teachers necessary to help affect change. Just think about how the NCLB sanctions for low test scores are rooted in funding, and try to figure out how schools that are doing poorly because of a lack of funding can possible benefit from losing more funding, they can't. The whole idea is ridiculous, cruel and to me unacceptable. So here's a link to Teach for America, for those of you who don't know what it is or would like to find out more. By the way Kozol didn't really plug Teach-For-America, but a local Chapter at Cornell helped sponsor the event and a spokeswoman for them talked for a minute after he was done.