It is unfortunate that Jonathan Kozol's book, Savage Inequalities, now seems like a timeless classic

I first read Kozol in 1995, as an undergraduate in education. Four years later, I lived his writing while teaching an a large but ill-equipped and strapped for money school. I was the the only white face in my classroom and learned to deal with roaches the length of a deck of cards. Many of my third graders did not read beyond a kindergarten level. Years later, Savage Inequalities, as it was published first in 1991, I am struck by what Mr. Kozol says right at the top of page 4.

" What seems unmistakable, but, oddly enough, is rarely said in public settings nowadays, is that the nation, for all practice and intent has turned its back upon the moral implications, if not the legal ramifications, of the Brown decision. The struggle being waged at all, is closer to the one that was addressed in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the court accepted segregated institutions for black people, stipulation only that they must be equal to those open to white people. The dual society, at least in public education, seems in general to be unquestioned."


By what means as educators are we beginning to question this dual society when we know that black and brown students are not being reached in the same manner as their white peers?

Closing Schools

From the new york times...

Over the past decade, the elementary and high schools that make the list of the worst— those in the bottom 25 percent on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test — have changed. One of every three schools — 47 of 155 — managed to make it off the list. The worst schools now are arguably better than the worst schools were 10 years ago. Their test scores have gone up (though much has been made about changes to the ISAT that made the test easier), attendance is up slightly in the elementary schools and the dropout rate in the worst high schools has improved by 10 percentage points, though it remains at a troubling 54 percent.

It's great to see that schools in Chicago have been improving, and that attendance is up and dropout rates are down. Although this article was about closing struggling schools, something my district just had to go through, and something Minnesota has had to deal with, I thought it was nice to highlight that Illinois schools are getting better. As a former teacher in the Chicago Public Schools, I'm happy for my former colleagues.