Synopsis
What is happening to our schools and to our kids? In this exposé of the flaws in American public education, Jonathan Kozol, with equal parts outrage and humanism, writes about the two separate and unequal systems of education in this country. His choice of the word "apartheid" in his subtitle is not merely rhetorical; students in many schools may never encounter students from other backgrounds, as segregation seems to have retaken hold. He also notes that students in inner-city schools are being shortchanged, and are suffering under a coercive culture of fear and control that can be likened to the prison system. In Kozol's view, the rhetoric of reform and improvement is a false Washingtonian drumbeat that takes advantage of well-meaning parents and communities. Students may even be worse off today than they were a decade ago. Furthermore, instruction and education have been replaced by testing. While privileged communities have curriculums of enrichment, inner-city kids have an endless diet of test preparation.
Kozol's is a respected, trusted voice. He based this book, which is informed by his long experience and trained eye, on his visits to schools around the country, his meetings with educators, and his talks with students and their families. He is the author of classics in the field that include DEATH AT AN EARLY AGE and SAVAGE INEQUALITIES. In THE SHAME OF THE NATION, Kozol speaks even more forcefully.
| Details | | Narrated by: | Harry Chase |
Publisher's Note
Over the past several years, Jonathan Kozol has visited nearly 60 public schools. Virtually everywhere, he finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, a state of nearly absolute apartheid now prevails in thousands of our schools. The segregation of black children has reverted to a level that the nation has not seen since 1968. Few of the students in these schools know white children any longer. Second, a protomilitary form of discipline has now emerged, modeled on stick-and-carrot methods of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons but targeted exclusively at black and Hispanic children. And third, as high-stakes testing takes on pathological and punitive dimensions, liberal education in our inner-city schools has been increasingly replaced by culturally barren and robotic methods of instruction that would be rejected out of hand by schools that serve the mainstream of society.Filled with the passionate voices of children and their teachers and some of the most revered and trusted leaders in the black community, The Shame of the Nation is a triumph of firsthand reporting that pays tribute to those undefeated educators who persist against the odds, but directly challenges the chilling practices now being forced upon our urban systems by the Bush administration. In their place, Kozol offers a humane, dramatic challenge to our nation to fulfill at last the promise made some 50 years ago to all our youngest citizens.
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