The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America Book

Throughout The Shame of a Nation, author Jonathan Kozol describes his journey through 60 different inner-city school detailing the discrepancies between those and rural schools. Kozol sheds some light on apartheid schooling, where minorities (specifically black and hispanic students) make up virtually the entire student body. Kozol details how the American education system is failing these students; particularly because these schools are underfunded, hire untrained teachers, and are overcrowded. Kozol doesn't just point these facts out, rather he compares these schools with those in rural areas that receive more funding and thus provide a more advantageous environment for young and eager minds. Kozol often alludes to the Brown v. Board of Education decision as well as the "separate but equal" doctrine, allowing him to illuminate a side of the education system that many want to keep in the dark.

Kozol uses his experiences and statistics to explain how and why inner-city schools are being forced to fail their students. He sheds light on the fact that the government simply does not supply these schools with the tools necessary for a quality education. As mentioned, inner-city schools, who are primarily filled with black and hispanic students, have unqualified teachers who are not properly trained feeding the brains of young students. Not only this, but there is an extreme difference in the amount of funding that inner-city schools receive in comparison to rural area schools. This is on top of the fact that a majority of the students at these schools already live in poverty. One of the most heart-wrenching topics that Kozol recognizes is how people provide little hope to these urban students. In his personal experiences visiting these schools, Kozol explains how students are often ranked on a 1-4 scale depending on one's intelligence, where students on the lower end of the spectrum are often ostracized and overlooked. All of this helps Kozol to demonstrate how the decisions made in Brown v. Board of Education as well as the "separate but equal" doctrine have almost become nonexistent in today's schools. Schools continue to be segregated and have large concentrations of certain races within them, and Kozol has made it undoubtedly clear that the educational facilities that are promised to children in order to help them grow into bright adolescents are far from equal.

Jonathan Kozol has spent virtually his entire adult life serving as an advocate for equal educational opportunities for all. He became a 4th grade teacher based in a black impoverished neighborhood of Boston in 1964. Kozol has written numerous books that detail his experiences as a teacher as well as describe the conditions of underfunded schools in America. It was his time spent as a 4th grade teacher where he encountered the same issues and conditions that he would witness over and over again when he would begin his five year project of The Shame of a Nation. Many of Kozol's works have been nominated and have won awards, including the 1968 National Book Award in Science, Philosophy, and Religion, the National Book Critics Circle Award of 1992, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award of 1996. Kozol himself has a highly recognizable name when it comes to activism regarding educational equality.

Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Shame of a Nation. It was a very insightful book that provided an in-depth look at the vast differences between rural and inner-city schools. Kozol does an excellent job of engaging the reader and forces them to provoke emotion; primarily anger in my case. The Shame of a Nation was very informative, especially with the integration of the statistics that Kozol emphasized. I always knew that all schools weren't equal in the sense of some schools having more advanced technology, more money, etc. However it was Kozol who informed me that countless American schools continue to practice segregation as well as helping me to understand just how dramatic the differences in treatment schools receive based on their location and who goes there. Additionally, I thought that Kozol was successful in helping his readers understand that the promised right to a quality education is not in fact a guaranteed right, but merely a privilege that some receive based on their socio-economic background.

Coming from a school that supplies well qualified teachers as well as the technology and materials necessary for me to succeed, makes it difficult for me to fully comprehend what it is like to go to school under any other circumstance. However Kozol's work gives me a second-hand view into schools that don't come close to the caliber of my own. His detailing of these inner-city schools helps to accentuate the education that many students take for granted. At my school for example, students are supplied with chromebooks, textbooks, workbooks, and other technologies that enable us to control our own education. It is at these inner-city schools however where the educational path for students is already planned for them: some will graduate, and as for the others, there is no hope. It was disheartening to read and come to the realization that there are a copious amount of schools in the US in which the government allows to attempt to raise the country's future with insufficient supplies. Overall, one of the biggest and saddest takeaways I got from The Shame of a Nation was that education serves as the foundation of a person's success, however there are millions of minority children who are being stripped of the right to this foundation because of a lack of hope and where they to happen go to school.