Dispersed and Unequal

[preciousdove]

New Orleans children are abandoned again, this time in Baton Rouge schools (Long)
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0540,kamenetz,68414,6.html
by Anya Kamenetz
October 2nd, 2005 8:24 PM

...The experiences of the students sent to Baton Rouge are a test case of Kozol's contention that racial segregation, exacerbated by testing, is the central problem in our public school system. Overt racism does not seem at work; the African-American East Baton Rouge superintendent, Charlotte Placide, is making the direct decisions about the treatment of these students, and Ms. Sherry Brock, Ms. Clara Joseph, and their respective staffs are each obviously working as hard as is humanly possible to teach their students with the tools at their disposal. Yet it is very easy to see how the continued structure of segregation is hurting the chances that something good can come from this disaster, for those who most need a second chance.

[stillcool]

1. From same article....

<Jonathan Kozol, who has spent 40 years documenting the disparities in our public school system, has just published a new book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, which he called in a recent Salon interview "the angriest book I've written in my life." He finds thatBrown v. Board of Education has failed; schools are now just as segregated as they were in 1968, and black and Latino schools are still dramatically inferior and underfunded, receiving a national average of $1,000 less per student each year. Further, he argues that the inflexible testing requirements imposed by No Child Left Behind create a sense of "siege" in the poorest schools, punishing them by withholding funds and forcing teachers to teach by rote and to the test.>

<Kozol's work is remarkable among white progressives for its insistent focus on race as the heart of our education problem, and indeed, our society. He told Salon that most liberals prefer to shift the topic to class because it is "less toxic," because "racial injustice has its roots in the sins of American history." >