Kozol, Chapter 8

The following quotes come from The Shame of the Nation (2005) by Jonathan Kozol.

“The problem, as it soon turned out, was that the program had become too cheap to rapidly.” (Kozol, 189)

      Well is that a surprise?  Schools are losing all sorts of funding regardless of what program it is for.  The first, typically, to get cut are electives.  When a reading program is not being allotted much money this is a sure sign that the school is going downhill, if it is not already.

      School systems don’t want to spend money to improve programs, because the boards of education want the money for raises to ‘their people’.

“During the same period, another, somewhat more assertive series of reports and books and summit conferences and a national symposia began to promulgate a new set of pronouncements as to how to ‘fix’ our schools by codifying lengthy lists of school reforms that ‘work’[…]” (Kozol, 194)

      Reports that tell you how to ‘fix’ a school… that is funny.  There really is no one report that would tell someone how to fix a school because every school is different, from the students to the faculty.

      The documentation consisting of methods that ‘worked’ could very well be useful.  These documents could help steer a school in the correct direction but follow the documentation as it is written may be disastrous because the school is different.

“‘With lightning speed,’ the newly chosen principal has turned a failing school into ‘a place where students learn’ — ‘no ifs and buts’ — instructional time is ‘maximized,’ teachers are ‘utilizing more deliberate techniques’ and a poor-performing school is on the way to ‘a dramatic turnaround’[…]” (Kozol, 198-199)

      Impressive, a school principal took a failing school and turned it into a much better performing school and I’m guessing there were not issues from the board of education.  In fact, they probably appreciated that they did not have to do much to get the school to perform better.

      Additionally, I would imagine that the teachers enjoyed working for this principle because he or she made it work and it appeared to not be in a hostile situation!  I bet this principal is very much wanted by many other districts.

“And, indeed, before the president left office, many of his goals had more or less dissolved into thin air, and very few people that I knew could still remember what they were.” (Kozol, 202)

      Surprise, surprise… I feel like this happens in many cases.  Other situations arise leaving education on the back burners.

      This quote from Kozol refers to the presidency of George H. W. Bush.  This was the time of the Persian Gulf War… so I can see how the education issues were tabled.  It is upsetting to see that the education of the country’s youth is not important and there are many other issues that set education back.

“A former fifth grade teacher told The Morning News that teachers were ‘instructed…how to cheat’ by walking around their classrooms while the students worked on their exams, stopping behind students who had chosen the wrong answer to a question, and remaining behind such students until they selected the right answer.” (Kozol, 207)

      Now, I don’t like standardized test (or tests in general), but having the teachers cheat for the students?  This is terrible and is does falsify the test results and cannot be marked as valid.

      This is a disgrace not only to the teachers but the students as well.  I feel that the board of education is looking at the students as if they are stupid and cannot succeed on their own.  If the teachers cheat for the students, the students will never learn.  This is just embarrassing.

“Equal education, not surprisingly, was no more accepted as a plausible objective in that era than it is, in general, today.” (Kozol, 212)

      Equal education is tough because student learn differently.  It seems realistic that schools attempt to give students equal education but are unable to.

      Teachers need to rework the curriculum to fit the classes they teach, one method does not work for everyone.