Savage

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate April 2001

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Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities was a shocking and extremely disturbing account of some of the urban schools in the United States. It is difficult, and embarrassing, to imagine that in this country, schools like these exist and are allowed to continue as they are; overpopulated, under-staffed, under-supplied, and well below safety standards. It is also appalling that politicians, tax payers and even some educators feel justified in leaving these schools the way they are; that money will not help solve the problems faced by the children in these schools. Unfortunately, it seems to come down to the issue of racism.

Each of these poor, urban schools seem to have an upper class, suburban counterpart. The urban schools have a majority of African American and Hispanic populations, while their counterparts have white majority populations. More money seems to be spent on the suburban schools instead of where the funds are needed most, in the urban schools.

Equal funding would seem the decent and correct approach; share some of the money with the under-staffed, under-supplied and sub-safety standard schools for the welfare of the children. In Detroit, as well as New Jersey, Kozol reported that equal-funding is opposed because "it wouldn't improve or benefit the poorer schools necessarily, or because it would improve and benefit those schools but would be subtracting something from other districts, and the other districts view this as unjust". This, sadly, seems to be the prevalent attitude throughout the United States. Kozol quoted the Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives "people in affluent Farmington are not going to vote for more taxes so that poor black kids in Ypsilanti can get better.reading programs". Society's response to other people's children is appalling. I was under the impression, naive as it sounds, that all children are...