Savage Inequalities

Savage Inequalities: Children in American Schools by Jonathan Kozol

Amazon Description:

“For two years, beginning in 1988, Jonathan Kozol visited schools in neighborhoods across the country, from Illinois to Washington D.C., and from New York to San Antonio. He spoke with teachers, principals, superintendents, and, most important, children. What he found was devastating. Not only were schools for rich and poor blatantly unequal, the gulf between the two extremes was widening—and it has widened since.  The urban schools he visited were overcrowded and understaffed, and lacked the basic elements of learning—including books and, all too often, classrooms for the students. In Savage Inequalities, Kozol delivers a searing examination of the extremes of wealth and poverty and calls into question the reality of equal opportunity in our nation’s schools.”

My Thoughts:

Another meaningful book by Kozol. I love how this author brings reality to the masses. It is impossible to deny the fact that children living in poverty are not given access to the same education as other children. Those who choose to ignore this fact should read this book! All children, absolutely, do not have an equal opportunity to education.

This book had me in tears…thinking of what these children experience every day. How does one overcome going to a school where no one cares? Where you don’t even have access to books? Where sewers are leaking into the bathroom? Where the best anyone thinks you can do is potentially graduate high school? Incredibly, incredibly sad.