Savage Inequalities
By: Jonathan Kozol
Presentation by: Fred Holt, Blanca Fernandez, and
Antoinette Miller
E6900 Multicultural Education
Jonathan Kozol
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Educator
Civil Rights Activists
Social Activists
Author
Areas of focus in Savage
Inequalities
East St. Louis, Ill.
Chicago, Ill.
New York City, NY.
Camden, NJ
Cincinnati, OH.
Washington D.C.
Chapter 1
East St. Louis in 1989
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98% Black (Kozol p. 7)
1/3 of families earn less than $7500 per year (Kozol p.
7)
75% are on welfare (Kozol p. 7)
East St. Louis: Toxic Dumping
Ground?
“The development of working sewage systems
made cities livable hundreds of years ago,” she
notes. “Sewage systems separate us from the
Third World…” (St Louis Health Official p.10)
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Contaminated Soil
Toxic industries
Hazardous Waste
Sewages in the streets and schools
No Waste Management system
Lack of viable Health Care
Poor Environment Promotes
Despair and Hopelessness
"You asked a question about Martin Luther King. All that stuff about ‘the
dream’ means nothing to the kids I know in East St. Louis. So far as they’re
concerned, he died in vain. He was famous and he lived and gave his
speeches and he died and now he’s gone. But we’re still here.”
- Student, East St. Louis
“is simply the worst possible place I can imagine to have a child brought
up…The community is in desperate circumstances.” -Chairman of the State
Board (Kozol p.25)
“How do you encourage hope while
surrounded by trash burners,
dumpsites, and enormous prisons?
Why should the children learn when
their lives are filled with unhappiness,
toxicity and ugliness?”
- Jonathan Kozol
Recipe for Disaster
• Underpaid teachers
• Budget cutbacks
• Layoffs of 280 teachers. 166
cooks, 25 teacher aides, 16
custodians and 18 painters,
electrician, engineers and
plumbers
• Lack of textbooks, supplies,
aids
East St. Louis
High School, 2004
• Dilapidated infrastructure
eats up funding
Despair and Dropouts
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Such conditions contribute to a high drop out rate, which Kozol puts
at 50% (Kozol p.54).
10% of school age population dropout before high school, which
would put the rate around 60%. (Kozol p.54)
In some schools, the dropout rate approaches 90% (Kozol p.58)
27% percent of high school graduates read at or below an eighth
grade level (Kozol p.58)
Savage Inequalities Today
Chapter 2
North Lawndale and South Side Chicago
“Placing the burden on the individual to break down doors in finding better education
for a child is attractive to conservatives because it reaffirms their faith in individual
ambition and autonomy. BUT TO ASK AND INDIVIDUAL TO BREAK DOWN THE
DOORS THAT WE HAVE CHAINED AND BOLTED IN ADVANCE OF HIS ARRIVAL IS
UNFAIR.” (Kozol p.62)
Morgan Park HS
•$2,100 for poorest districts
compared to $10,000 for richest
districts
• Teacher salaries lower in these
districts compared to richer districts
• Out of date textbooks and
curriculum and no funds to replace
them
• Teachers spending their own money
for classroom necessities
New Trier HS
Funding for Education
•Based mainly on property taxes
•Southside homes in 1990 – average price $68,000
•Winnetka, IL homes in 1990 – average price
$400,000
•Fewer students in richer districts but more property
tax available per child
•More students in poorer districts with much less in
property taxes per child
•Average home prices for Southside as of Dec
2010 - $400,000
•Average home prices for Winnetka, IL as of Dec
2010 – $1.8 million
Chicago Urban School v. The
Suburbs
A Comparison
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Over 13 years - $38,000 spent on inner center children vs. $100,000 on children in
more affluent areas (Kozol p.73)
Du Sable High School
 Grad Rate – 25%
 Of those only 17% are in college prep classes
 20% are in General Curriculum
 63% in vocational classes
Underpaid teachers – average salary for low income/high risk areas is less than
$40,000 and that is the high end
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Suburbs salaries average $60,000
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Under trained teachers
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Poorly equipped libraries
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Mondays and Fridays in May nearly 18,000 children find themselves without a teacher
(Kozol p. 53)
On average, 5,700 children in 190 classrooms have no teacher (Kozol p.52)
A Comparison cont’d
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Academic counselor is assigned to Freshmen at New Trier and
remain with them until they graduate
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93% of New Trier seniors go on to 4 year colleges
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New Trier has use of 27 acres
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By the time students from Glencoe and Winnetka reach 6th or 7th
grade their reading level is at or higher than the seniors in the best
Chicago high schools. (Kozol p.65)
Savage Inequalities of public
Education in New York
Riverdale , in the Northwest section of the
Bronx
Home to many city’s most sophisticated and
well educated families (Kozol, 84)
The other section to the south and east is poor,
you will not see many white children
“The contrast between public schools in each of
these 2 neighborhoods is obvious to any visitor”
(Kozol, 84).
“The elementary school in Riverdale has
windows that are decorated with attractive
brightly colored curtains that look out on
flowering trees.” (Kozol p. )
This can not compare to Public School 79
(PS 79) where the classroom is overly
crowded and there are no windows.
Riverdale has 825 children in
Kindergarten- 6th grade, this is only ½ of
what you can find in PS 79
Most children at
Riverdale are white
or Asian, if they are
hispanic or black
they are usually
placed in a “special”
class.
In PS 79 children are
usually all black
Israel, small Puerto Rico boy
said “People on the outside
may think that we don’t know
what it is like for other
students, but we do visit other
school and we have eyes and
we have brains. You cannot
hide the differences. You see it
and compare…” (Kozol, 104)
Children of the City Invincible:
Camden, New Jersey
• Is the 4th poorest city of more than
50,000 people in America.
•The City has 200 liquor stores and
bars.
•Of the city’s 2,000 public housing units,
500 are boarded up.
The drive from Cherry Hill to Camden is
approximately 5 minutes. It is like a journey
between different worlds.
•Half the children in the classroom have no
textbooks due to the lack of funds.
• They have to use old books that are subgrade appropriate.
“So I have to ask …well are they three years
smarter? Am I stupid?” (Kozol, 152)
(comparing himself to a friend from Cherry
Hill who is his age)
What is impressing is that “Kids get up at all
and come to school. They are old enough to
know what they are coming into.” (Kozol,
141)
600 Children enter 9th grade by 11th grade
there are only 300.
“It rains on my city… but I see
rainbows in the puddles.” (Kozol, 148)
Chapter 5
The Equality of Innocence
Washington, D.C.
When looking at studies of school
finance, questions to consider are:
How can we achieve more equity in education
in America?
How can we acheive both equity and excellence
in education? (Kozol p.175)
Fiscal Inequalities
Between School Districts
“In Maryland, for instance, one of several states in which the courts have looked at
fiscal inequalities between school districts, an equity suit filed in 1978, although
unsuccessful, led the state to reexamine the school funding system. When a task force
set up by the governor offered its suggestions five years later, it argued that 100
percent equality was too expensive. The goal, it said, was 75 percent equality-meaning
that the poorest districts should be granted no less than three quarters of the funds at
the disposal of the average district.” (Kozol p.176)
Washington, D.C.
Two Different Worlds
“One is the Washington of
cherry blossoms, the
sparkling white
monuments, the
magisterial buildings of
government…, of politics
and power” (Kozol p.
181)
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Affluent neighborhoods
Schools that receive more money
and resources.
“Just a mile away, the other
world is known as
Anacostia.” (Kozol p. 181)
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Schools with very little resouces
and money.
Schools with holes in the walls
and ceilings.
School flooding and rats in the
cafeteria.
DUAL SYSTEMS
“ But one dual system (city versus suburbs) almost
inevitably creates a second dual system (city-poor versus
city-less-than-poor). So it is that inequality, once it is
accepted, grows contagious.” (Kozol p.186)
The Importance of Nonwhite
Personnel as Administrators
The placement of a black person as a city
official or public school administrator serves
three functions:
Symbolism
Enforcement
Scapegoats
Chapter 6
The Dream Deferred,
Again, in San Antonio
“…a society in which a family’s wealth has no relation to the
probability of future educational attainment and wealth and
station it affords. By this standard, education offered to poor
children should be at least as good as that which is provided
to the children of the upper-middle class.” (Kozol p. 2077)
The Foundation Program
There is a basic formula that is in place for
education finance:
A local tax is raised from the value of homes and
businesses.
(2) In affluent areas, this is usually enough to operate a
school. In less affluent districts, they levy a tax which
assures that the tax burden on all citizens is equally
apportioned..
(3) The state will provided funds to lift the poorer districts to
a level equal to the richest district.
(1)
Edgewood School District
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Located in San Antonio, Texas
96% of students are nonwhite.
Edgewood’s residents pay one the highest tax rates in
the area.
Edgewood spent $231 for each student whereas, Alamo
Heights, the richest section of the city, was able to
spend $543 on each student.
A Class-Action Suit
Resident Demetrio Rodriguez and other parents filed a
class-action suit on behalf of their children.
“ A sample of 110 Texas districts at the time showed that
ten wealthiest districts spent an average of three times
as much per pupil as the four poorest districts…” (Kozol
p. 214)
The federal district court in San Antonio ruled that Texas
was in violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S.
Constitution. This was appealed and reversed.
Twenty-three years later…
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Per pupil spending
ranges from $2,000$19,000.
Children still attend
separate and unequal
schools.
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Alamo heights is a
part of San Antonio
but operates as a
separate system.
Texas’s school
funding system was
found to be
unconstitutional under
state law.
“All of our children ought to be allowed a stake in the
enormous richness of America. Whether they were to poor
white Appalachians or to wealthy Texans, to poor black
people in the Bronx or to rich people in Manhasset or
Winnetka, they are all quite wonderful and innocent when
they are small. We soil them needlessly (Kozol p. 233)