Kozol

This article just pissed me off! Not that I disagree with Kozol, that fact is I agree with everything he says. So you will have to excuse me if I ramble on a bit. This author argues that our students, faculty and families are still living and breathing in a world of segregated school systems. It is both angering and sad to me that our schools have not improved in segregation over the years but have remained the same or even worse off!

The section in this article that caught my attention was that there has been many attempts to encourage families of all races to enroll in the same district. You would figure given a racially mixed area in a nice neighborhood it would be natural to send your child to that school. However, in a Seattle neighborhood white parents would wait with their child to send them to a predominately white school! (Kozol) That is just outrageous! The interesting fact of the matter is no one will step up to the plate and admit to the reality of segregation. We just tiptoe around and let our children become exposed to racism.

On the other side of the coin, there are school systems that pretend and "act" as though they address the needs of all children from diverse backgrounds. When Kozol visited these schools that claimed they honored diversity; the racial numbers were alarming to say the least, (2,800 black and Hispanic, 1 Asian and 3 whites). That is not a diverse school system! Personally, for me this article hit home; especially when Kozol went into detail on the schools in the lower income areas that have one girls bathroom or leaking ceilings. I work in a diverse, low income school system and at times it is a challenge to get middle class or upper class families to stay at this district due to the fact that we are located near the section 8 housing. I also have seen over the years, how we are at the bottom of the list of things to get fixed in our district. (we just recently got a working playground that can be functional for all children!) The sad but true fact is you go into the wealthy area of town where there is predominately white children and you see shinny new floors and you bet those children would never be deprived of new playground! As Marina Warner states, "There are expensive children and cheap children."

Children from low-income families should be given just as much of an opportunity to to have nice classrooms and a working playground. The quote from a child says it all, "We want a good school-like all the other Kings have." (Kozol article) Of course being in Early Childhood Special Educator, the section of this article that also touched home was the large number of low income children deprived of Pre-k. These children come to Kindergarten with out social skills, how to hold a crayon, identify shapes, colors or that printed pages go left to right. (Kozol) What a disservice to our young children! WE set them up for failure before they even get a chance to succeed! To make matters worse, as children get older they are put in classrooms with teachers who teach a Nazi like approach where children are afforded time slots to speak in class. What ever happened to collaborative learning! Never mind that the teachers are punished by losing their job if they fail to teach by those standards. Instruction is not driven by students interests or aspirations, they are automatically shut down. "You're ghetto"-"So you Sew." And we wonder why the dropout rate continues to be so high for the High school students.