Complete reading the excerpt from
Savage Inequalities by Jonathan
Kozol. Make sure you have read and annotated the entire excerpt. You must also write 2-3 discussion questions.
For extra credit respond to the following:
Our essential questions for this unit are:
- Who has what in American society?
- Who decides?
- Are you OK with that?
Based on your prior knowledge and what you read about public school education in
Savage Inequalities, make connections to our essential questions. How does education fit into these questions? Which question do you think it connects best with?
You may also comment on what other students wrote.
Please only write your first name at the end of your response. No Last Names!
Wow the difference of school quality can be seen even by the blind. The officials of the New York City Board of Education have made clear that they have no agenda in helping the poor districts with remarks stating that there is no point of helping them. I mean, savage inequalities is right, its insane how they can spend $14 on each student at P.S 24 whereas they spend about 90 cents on students from P.S 79. It is unfair that they have these officials from privileged families allocating where the money goes for school districts. Where is the equality?, where is our representation in the Board of Education? If anything at all more money should be spent trying to bring the downtrodden schools up to par with their prosperous counterparts.-Angel
ReplyDeleteRemember, Savage Inequalities was published in 1991. For this reason the statistical data and the events that Kozol is relaying occured between 1988-1990. How different do you think the statistics are now, if at all? I challenge you all to find out what the current statistics are? Is there more, less or the same equity in education today as compared to 20 years ago? Name your source of information.
ReplyDeletewell first off, angel, i don't think you actually wrote everything that you just said rofl you're grammar skills aren't that good. I would have to agree with Salak because in this decade, there is a lot more money being spent on schools that have minorities as a major part of the school. The education offered through the NYC DOE is a lot better than it was 20 years ago, but in some schools, money is being distributed unevenly between schools in low and high income neighborhoods. The difference is not as dramatic as it was during the time the book was written though.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all three of you guys. I don't think that favortism should be a factor when deciding what money should be allocated to what schools. But then again, that's the way things work. The rich and powerfull gets to decide what money is spent and where it's spent. Savage Inequalities was an article written 20 years ago, however I think if asked, the majority of principals in NYC public schools today would say that the problem has just gotten worst. Recently, the DOE announced budget cuts that would eliminate afterschool programs and get teachers fired. With stuff like that happening, poorer schools will only get poorer and low income kids will end up with the low income education their schools can afford. Statistics show that the higher the level of education one gets, the higher their earnings in life will be. Now with budget cuts affecting schools with low income students in it, how is the growing economic gap supposed to be closed when these students can't even get the proper education they will need for future job employment. IDK, but that's just messed to me up! - Fatima
ReplyDeleteTo quote Angel, "the difference of school quality can be seen even by the blind." This is injustice, the rich are always the most powerfull. Why is it that they decide what money is spent and where? It brings me back to one of our essential questions: Who has what in American society? It is absurd how the New York City Board of Education culls the predominatly white schools or private schools for more funding. It would clearly be more productive to fund the schools that are being neglected, how do they expect the children to learn if there are no substantial funds? As Salak said Savage Inequalities was published in 1991, So perhaps the statistics have changed for the better since then. However, I agree with what Fatima said earlier, "how is the growing economic gap supposed to be closed when these students can't even get the proper education they will need for future job employment."
ReplyDeleteWe have to keep in mind our essentail questions while addressing these articles; Who decides, and are you OK with that? - Matt
first off angel stop tryna show off, i think it is unfair that the richer or more developed schools benifit from the distribution of money... more than the lower budget schools.kids no longer have equal opportunity of learning... they are being discriminated against,the goverment have cut out after school programs and many other activities that has helped out children in there ackademik progress ... soon the goverment will start shutting down low budget schools. this will probaly make a great uproar in the educational society...
ReplyDeleteim graduating in june!!
Heyy...its farah
ReplyDeleteThat whole article just annoyed me when i read it. How can they let such inequalities going on in schools. Everyone is suppose to have equal opportunity to learn. There shouldnt be a speacialized class for race or "how smart" you are.
This seems to me that the rich will always be rich and the poor will stay poor because your wealth determines your education. I thought your education determined your wealth but it seems that your education wont be up to par because it is not equal. SO how are we lower income studentrs suppose to be sucessful in our future?
Im not sure who decides what schools gets what money but whoever it is honestly has no heart....