Jose Vilson wrote a recent blog post inspired by Jonathan Kozol’s classic book, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools.
I hate to break it to people across the nation, but poverty hasn’t gone away. At all. In the conversation throughout and about education, words like “assessment,” “quality review,” and “tenure” get thrown around with little regard to the learning conditions of students … outside class. That people think 16 out of the 24 hours a day every child spends out of school (not including holidays and weekends!) don’t merit attention is beyond me. Abject poverty inhibits the learner in ways you can’t always assess, and all this talk about kids making it out sounds myopic and reek of exceptionalism.
Read the rest of Jose’s post, Savage Inequalities Redux and plan on spending time with Jonathan Kozol July 11-14, 2011 at Constructing Modern Knowledge!