I would just like to say that I am in disbelief at some of Kozol's descriptions of schools in this book. I guess I have been "protected" all these years and didn't even know it.

I agree with you. It's a sad situation. I hope that Kozol will provide some solutions to this situation later in the book. If not, maybe we will discuss some solutions in class. I would also like to know what would it take to turn this around????? So far, he only states the problem(s). I still need to read 70 pages for Wed. See you then.

Chris

Because of the lack of diverse populations in my county, I can easily see how that same situation in reverse could occur in areas with heavy populations of blacks or Hispanics. Remember Dr. Vargas and his facts about future changes in ethnic make up in the US? What Kozol saw is nothing to what is coming.

Jackie, you are correct, but what I find in such disbelief is that although there are such poverty areas in the individual states, like NY, there is so much economy flowing through them. I guess it's like anything or anybody else..... you place money on what you deem "important". And the curriculum that some of these schools are using.......YIKES!

Amy is correct. As a society we spend our money on what we value and then look at what government spend the most on and it is scary. Look at the Federal budget and it will scare you to see where most of the money is going.

We (the US) need to get our priorities right. Some schools have nice gynasiums and other sport facilities, however they have mobile units surrounding their schools. I am not bashing athletics; I just think that education is taking a back seat.

Shelby High School is raising money for a 2 million dollar field house, while their school remains in bad shape. I think that they have mobile units also.

Cleveland County will need to build a new high school soon because of increasing enrollments. Will they build a new school or add mobile units to the existing schools ? I would hope that they would build a new school and fix the schools already in existence.

We (teachers) educate the future professionals of America, however we will continue to get paid less than some of them will make.

A 2 million dollar field house! Wow! I wonder how much of it is driven by community. I mean really it seems like the community will get all behind a fundraising drive for a new stadium, but ask them for money to buy tables, desks, chairs, computers.....well we all know the reply to that one.

I agree that much of what Kozol describes is unbelievable. The idea that a school with 3000 students having to have nine lunch periods starting at 9:42 in the morning makes me ask the questions, "Is it possible to teach something in such a school? Is it possible for anyone to learn anything in such a school?" There is a great deal of shame to spread about for allowing these conditions to exist.

I watched an Oprah show where she took students from an extremely poor school in Chicago and had them trade places with students from a very rich school. It was an eye opener for students on each side of the fence and her audience. The students truly had no idea that conditions like these existed elsewhere.

I said about the same thing in my topic titled "Blinded." I taught for a semester in inner city Greensboro, and I was exposed to a school that was primarily African American and Hispanic and low income, but I didn't realize how many schools like that actually existed. I thought maybe two or three in each large scale city, but it sounds like the majority of laschool districts in cities across America operate with a segregated system. I'm glad that the book has given us all these statistics on school populations.

Heath,
You are right. People have their priorities confused when it comes to education. Athletic programs become number one in some cases leaving academics and materials for instruction at the bottom. It's a tough situation.

Amy I totally agree if more people in this country would put education on the list of "important" things more money would start flowing to fix some of these problems. I'm afraid people in America take our public education system for granted and have really allowed it to become the broken system we find Kozol talking about in this book.

This increased emphasis on education would be a good thing. Perhaps if the public, government, and others would stop viewing schools as childcare services and teenage holding pens, some one might really do something about these schools.