Book+Reviews

**Book Reviews**​

by Jonathan Kozol (1991) Review by: Laura Vianna Jonathan Kozol’s //Savage Inequalities: Children in American Schools,// is an ethnographic approach to the inequalities in American public schools. Kozol traveled around the country to different schools talking to students, teachers, administrators, public officials, and community members to give the reader a collection primary sources of the travesties occurring in public schools.
 * //Savage Inequalities: Children in American Schools// **

Much of the book includes descriptions of the conditions of the environment and community of these poor inner city schools especially the devastating conditions of the schools themselves. For example, in East St. Louis, Illinois, Kozol states, “among the negative factors listed by the health director are the sewage running in the streets, air that has been fouled by local plants, the nigh lead levels noted in the soil, poverty, lack of education, crime, dilapidated housing, insufficient health care, unemployment” (p.20). Now think about the schools located in such an environment. Because school funding is based on property taxes, it is safe to say the reason for lack of funding is due to “sewage running in the streets…crime…unemployment”…in short, a lack of property tax revenue sufficient to support schools.

To make this point more clear Kozol begins to discuss the major segregation of East St. Louis and the rest of St. Louis. Kozol portrays the fear of East St Louis with the thought of the communities on the periphery. People avoid East St. Louis at all costs. This saddens community members because avoidance is only enhancing the school problems through ignorance.

Kozol continues and take the reader to other underfunded and underappreciated public schools all over America including Chicago's South Side, Camden and Jersey City, N.J., San Antonio,Texas and the South Bronx, New York. These pictures that Kozol paints for the reader are difficult to digest. At one point he describes Public School 261 in New York City. The building had no windows, Kozol’s journal reads, “I feel asphyxiated…” (p. 87). Reading such intense descriptions that make the reader uncomfortable is Kozol’s purpose. He tries to make the reader feel what these children feel. Uncomfortable. Trapped in an unforgiving environment. Hopeless.

Kozol’s discusses famous court cases that have had some impact on the education system in America: //Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, and Miliken vs. Bradley// all decisions affecting education. And yet, Kozol believes the education systems were better off 100 years ago. This is a bold statement which causes large debate. Whether Kozol is truly supportive of this statement is irrelevant to his purpose. His provocative writing style is meant to, of course, provoke thought. To provoke questions. To provoke answers. To provoke change.


 * Kozol Extras**[[image:Jonathan_Kozol.jpg width="169" height="241" align="right" caption="Image from RandomHouse.com"]]

[|Biography] [|"An Unequal Education"]" [|NY Times archive of articles about Kozol] [|Video about "Savage Inequalities"] [|Interview with Kozol]