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The Shame Of The Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America by Jonathan Kozol
In The Shame Of The Nation, Jonathan Kozol points out that fifty after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, most of our urban schools are almost as segregated as they were then. Kozol calls this apartheid schooling, and points out a litany of reasons from poor funding to substandard teachers' wages to teaching to the standardized tests. After visiting inner-city schools for six years, he finds most schools disinclined to make a difference in their students' education, leaving them with little hope and ambition and scandalous graduation rates. Besides listing the litany of problems that seem impossible to overcome, Kozol also shows teachers and schools that have overcome the odds. The Shame Of The Nation has received positive reviews with the Los Angeles Times saying, "Kozol's book engages the heart and mind. But the question is no longer: When will America value its black and Latino children enough to guarantee them access to white schools? Rather it is: When will we value them enough to guarantee them safe campuses, competent teachers and a curriculum that engages, challenging the mind and nourishing the spirit, so that the bounty of America is finally theirs to enjoy?"
