Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America

Abstract

Kozol, Jonathan, (2005). The Shame of Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. New York: Crown Publishers. In Jonathan Kozol's book, The Shame of Nation, author writes that is harder to convince young people that they 'can learn' when they are cordoned off by a society that isn't really sure they can (37). The book examines what Kozol terms the resegregation of public in America. To conduct his research, Kozol visited 60 public schools in 11 different states over a five year period (2000-2005). He found worst segregation rates since Brown v. Board of Education: nationwide, nearly three quarters of black and Latino students attend schools where their fellow classmates are predominantly minority students, more than two million black students attend schools that are 99-100% non-white, and in numerous citiesChicago, Washington D.C., and Detroit, for instance-minorities constitute between 90 and 95% of all public school students ( 19, 8). Because racially isolated schools tend to appear in pockets of concentrated poverty, students this book focuses on also fall far below federal poverty guidelines. This is an issue with clear implications for developmental educators. As Kozol points out, achievement gap between minority and white students, which had narrowed in decades following Brown v. Board of Education, has become a chasm over past fifteen years. Kozol points to figures from nonprofit group Education Trust indicating that math and reading skills of black and Hispanic twelfth-graders fall below level of proficiency achieved by seventh grade white children (281). This has coincided with a sharp decline in enrollment of minority students in post-secondary education; of those students who do persevere and gain admittance to colleges and universities, a significant percentage will be in need of developmental coursework. While none of this comes as a surprise to developmental educators, Kozol's book is useful for its unique and comprehensive overview of scholastic backgrounds of many of students we serve, delineating causes and consequences of segregated education in 21st century. Although The Shame of Nation is data-rich with nearly 50 pages of annotations, it does not rely on statistics alone to make its case; one of most compelling features of book is its incorporation of student narratives. Of his decision to include voices of children in book, Kozol states that unlike adult experts who develop policies that shape their destinies...children have no ideologies to reinforce, no superstructure of political opinion to promote, no civic equanimity or image to defend, no personal reputation to secure (12). In other words, they are pure witnesses. It is a testament to Kozol's talent as a writer and scholar that this technique comes across as neither saccharine nor sensationalistic; rather, result reads like a more complete accounting of situation, offering vivid specifics where there are usually abstractions. Over course of 12 chapters, Kozol weaves scholarly research and personal narrative to create an accessible, thorough, and original treatment of subject. The first two chapters serve to familiarize reader with major themes of book: chapter one, Dishonoring Dead, provides a statistical overview of separate and unequal education in United States, presenting case studies of apartheid schools ironically named after civil rights pioneers. Chapter two, Hitting them Hardest When They're Small, outlines some of most obvious difficulties facing children who attend racially segregated schools, including overcrowding, decrepit facilities, and high teacher turnover. Chapters six and seven delve more deeply into causes and effects of segregated schools as they manifest on a physical level. A Hardening of Lines examines exodus of white students from public schools located in racially mixed neighborhoods. …