Savage Inequalities

I won’t pretend to be a good writer or a great teacher; and I won’t pretend to have apparent ideas and suggestions for solving the crisis that Jonathan Kozol seems to pointing to in public schooling in America. I will, however, attempt to pinpoint some of the causes for our seemingly unchangeable situation today, and potential methods or thoughts that might make it seem more alterable.

The reason that I describe the present situation in American public schools as unchangeable s really many reasons. Because there does not seem to be one sure thing to blame, there is not one thing that we can do to fix it. I don’t know that anyone is aware of any first cause that initiated the entire system to spiral downwards. If a person points his finger at a particular fault, he can easily move his finger slightly in a different direction and point at a fault that spawned our original, or is produced from it. There is an entire tree of blame that exists in our system of education and it is so large that people have trouble determining where the roots begin.

Kozol seems to suggest, throughout his book, that the largest culprit is money. Although he quotes and makes references to, time and time again, the many researchers who claim that money has no role to play in sealing success in a public school, it seems obvious that he makes reference to this as an absurdity that exists in our present situation and which adds to the ever increasing list of bullshit data and excuses that is handed to the concerned public. Although I am immediately inclined to agree with Kozol about money being the simplest and swiftest way to change the disturbing results of poor public schooling, it also strikes me as too easy.

I suppose that Kozol is also conceding that more money is not the perfect solution when he brings up the various factors that are tied to more money, two of which I will talk about here: breeding, and implementation. I will wait to discuss breeding because it is, to me, the lengthier and more puzzling dilemma. Implementation, however, may be just as puzzling, but takes less time to describe. I think Kozol summed it up well when he wrote,


Often [advocates for equity] will reassure the suburbs: “We don’t want to take away the good things that you have. We just want to lift the poorer schools a little higher.” Political accommodation, rather than conviction, dictates this approach because, of course, it begs the question: Since every district is competing for the same restricted pool of gifted teachers, the “minimum” assured to every district is immediately devalued by the district that can add $10,000 more to teacher salaries. Then, too, once the richest districts go above the minimum, school suppliers, textbook publishers, computer manufacturers adjust their price horizons – just as teachers raise their salary horizons – and the poorest districts are left where they were before the minimum existed.


If Americans require that a minimum amount of money is spent in each district, then not only will the minimum amount be a small chunk of change; but – if every school starts on the same level, there is still nothing that makes them remain on the same level. Before we can find a way to appropriately implement money equity amongst school districts – equity that remains and is visible – more money is just meaningless.

One of the reasons that money equity remains a far-off dream is that most agree it takes more than just dollars to educate a child. Proper implementation might also include how money can be spent to improve a child’s breeding. I don’t intend for this to sound as dark as it does. By breeding, I mean the lifestyle, mentality, education, and ethics a child is born into. Often a family’s income will also reflect how they value education (often – though, not always). It’s not enough to change the schools – we also have to change the families. As easy as it is for me to say that the home life has to change, I cannot say what has to change. Who am I – who is anyone – to tell people how to live, how to raise their children, what to value, etc.?

After reading Savage Inequalities, many pre-formed observations and suppositions about poverty and public schooling are confirmed; but, I am just as overwhelmed – if not more so – by the many branches of blockades and bullshit that keep anyone from finding a decent solution to all of the problems. Money is a well-voiced and smart solution in the book, but where to put the money, how to spend, on whom to spend it – who makes these choices? There is so much that needs to be different, and I don’t know where to begin.