Kozol's Shame of the Nation: School Segregation Analysis

Introduction

Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation exposes the ways in which the school desegregation achieved by the civil rights movement has been dismantled since the late 1980s. Exploring Brown v. Board of Education and its impact, Kozol also examines the widespread efforts to dismantle that decision's effects, the crippling results of school segregation, and the sometimes harmful attempts to overcome it. Kozol further examines some ways in which desegregation can be achieved, chiefly through a revived civil rights movement supported by state and federal legislatures and courts. Kozol's book reveals an alarming situation, though some of his conclusions seem extreme.

Chapter 1 discusses the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Thurgood Marshall, who argued that decision, maintained that separate-but-equal schools are not possible and that school segregation on the basis of race deprives minority children of equal opportunities. That ruling led to the racial desegregation of U.S. schools from the late 1950s through the mid-1980s. Since that time, the Reagan Administration and the Supreme Court dismantled desegregation, and society has allowed it to happen without openly acknowledging racial segregation. The lip service paid to Thurgood Marshall's words, while society deliberately segregates schools, dishonors Marshall, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks — as well as all others who fought so hard for desegregation. Those who deliberately create school segregation call it progressive school reform, but Kozol argues it is fundamentally racist.

Chapter Themes and Analysis

Kozol uses examples like Pineapple and her sister Briana, from the South Bronx, to illustrate that Thurgood Marshall was right. He returns to Pineapple throughout the book to support his broader arguments. Pineapple and Briana are nonwhite children, closed off from whites in their daily lives and taught in segregated schools by inexperienced teachers who leave quickly. As the years passed, Pineapple's school became progressively worse. Kozol also notes that some segregated schools pretend the message of desegregation is still alive — yet some of the worst educational conditions caused by segregation and poverty exist in schools named after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Thurgood Marshall.

Chapter 2 discusses the ways in which society requires that young nonwhite children in racially segregated schools be heroic in order to succeed. Segregated children in the South Bronx attend schools that lack gyms, outdoor playgrounds, sufficient space, adequate libraries, art and music programs, adequate medical staff, enough desks, and weatherproof roofs — and they are aware of these deficiencies. They know that other schools have those things while their schools do not. Young nonwhite children in segregated schools also have teachers who earn lower salaries; as a result, those teachers tend to have less experience and seniority. Furthermore, far less money is spent per pupil on the education of children in segregated schools than is spent on white students.

White children also tend to receive preschool education, while nonwhite children receive less and less preschool, and Head Start serves fewer and fewer minority children. Despite all these disadvantages rooted in segregation, third-grade nonwhite students must take high-stakes standardized performance tests. Society is demanding that very young nonwhite children be heroic when the deck is stacked against them — and they know it is.

Chapter 3 discusses some of the ways in which school administrators and teachers in racially segregated schools have tried to compensate for inequality by using strategies that actually harm students. Some principals and teachers, not expecting racial segregation to change, develop strategies to adapt. These strategies emphasize raising test scores, strict policies that prevent students from advancing or graduating unless they meet rigid requirements, and an insistence on conformity. The underlying attitude is that if students do exactly what they are told, they will succeed, and if they do not, they will fail.

Some of these rigid systems label learning processes with terms such as "authentic writing," "active listening," "accountable talking," and "zero noise." These measures are oriented entirely toward passing state tests, sacrifice genuine education, and generate anxiety in students. They also label students — and even teach students to label one another — according to test results, placing them at Level 1 (the lowest reading level) through Level 4 (the highest).

Chapter 4 discusses the strong influence of corporations on segregated schools, where the goal is to produce compliant team-player employees. From kindergarten onward, students are taught to consider the jobs they might one day hold, and as they grow older they are pushed to tailor their learning to those job prospects. Kozol notes that college is rarely mentioned. Instead, students are conditioned to have lower expectations than higher education and to focus on workforce readiness upon leaving school. Education itself is treated as a commodity — something to be acquired and traded — rather than a lifelong process of growth and inquiry.

These measures severely narrow students' horizons and teach them tunnel vision focused on getting and keeping a job. While education should certainly develop skills useful in the workplace, Kozol argues it must do more: it should teach students how to learn and inspire them to aspire to more than employment alone.

Chapter 5 continues the discussion of standardized testing and stresses how the intense focus on those tests lowers the overall quality of education. "Rome" is the test, and if the road of educational lessons does not lead there, some administrators in segregated schools are not interested in those lessons. They insist on uniform teaching that eliminates flexibility and freedom. So determined are these administrators to raise test scores that history, geography, art, music, and recess are eliminated because they will not improve test performance — yet all of these are components of a quality education.

Furthermore, because nonwhite children in segregated schools have such limited resources, they are unlikely to receive a quality education and will probably fail the tests regardless. High-stakes tests that begin in kindergarten and continue through the grades can create serious anxiety in very young children and can force them to repeat grades, making it more likely that they will eventually drop out of school.

Chapter 6 discusses how the separation of white and nonwhite children that begins in early schooling becomes increasingly entrenched throughout society. The hardening of these lines is illustrated in the competition for New York City's best schools: white, educated, informed parents know that children must apply to better schools a year before they begin, while nonwhite, less-educated, less-informed parents — sometimes speakers of other languages — are unaware of this requirement. As a result, white children's parents are able to help their children gain access to better schools, while nonwhite children's parents cannot.

The privileged educational system available to white children and the opportunities they enjoy in life are directly linked, just as the inferior educational conditions of segregated nonwhite children and their diminished life opportunities are linked. Moreover, white parents who benefit from better educational and life opportunities actively resist desegregation, believing that sharing resources will lower the quality of education and limit opportunities for their own children.

Chapter 7 examines the absence of both physical and functional beauty in many segregated schools and the serious impact that absence has on students. Many segregated schools lack computers, pleasant surroundings, structurally sound buildings, air conditioning, heat, sufficient space, desks, chairs, textbooks, and adequate enrollment in advanced placement classes. This deprivation makes learning harder, makes students less motivated to attend, and increases the likelihood that they will choose lower-level courses simply because those are available — and that they will skip school or drop out entirely.

In Chapter 8, Kozol writes about the false promises associated with school segregation. Advocates of segregated schools speak in the language of progressive school reform and claim that segregation actually benefits students. Administrators and teachers within segregated schools also adopt strategies promising to produce successful students. However, the reality of segregation and chronic underfunding renders those promises hollow.

Kozol recalls the Higher Horizons program, which began when he was teaching in a segregated school in the 1960s. Higher Horizons was designed to increase per-pupil spending, raise teacher and student expectations, improve student skills, reduce dropout rates, and strengthen parent-teacher collaboration. According to Kozol, the program initially showed promise, but funding was cut so severely that its goals could not be met, and it collapsed after seven years — its promises unfulfilled.

Kozol also examines the expectations placed on new school superintendents and other educators, and the promises they make in response to an unfair segregated system. These leaders are so overwhelmed by structural segregation, external pressures, and poor student test performance that they quit or are replaced. The rapid turnover in leadership prevents long-term goals from being realized, turning further promises into false ones.

Chapter 9 discusses some modern efforts to combat segregation. Kozol highlights Prince Edward County, Virginia — once among the most segregated school systems in the nation prior to Brown v. Board of Education — as a success story. Through the efforts of individuals like county school superintendent Margaret Blackman, Prince Edward County has become one of the most integrated school systems in the United States, with 91–93% of all children in the county attending public schools together. Yet Kozol warns that this success is fragile and could be undone, along with desegregation efforts elsewhere in the nation.

Kozol calls for a broader resistance to segregation. He argues that the civil rights movement entered a kind of limbo before achieving all its goals, and that it must be revived nationwide to reclaim the desegregation progress that has been lost and to push forward toward completing those goals.

Chapter 10 examines why clearly needed school reforms have not been formally adopted in the United States through the courts or legislatures. One reason is public misunderstanding: most Americans believe the U.S. Constitution somehow guarantees equal quality of education, when in fact it does not. Because school segregation and its consequences are nationwide, many cases have been brought in local, state, and federal courts to challenge it. Some, like Brown v. Board of Education, succeeded; many others have failed, with judges either unable or unwilling to mandate desegregation.

Legislative approaches have also been attempted. Reverend Jesse Jackson Jr. sought a Constitutional Amendment that would prohibit segregation throughout the country, and Congressman Chaka Fattah worked toward passage of the Fiscal Fairness Act, which would guarantee equal resources among all schools. Neither measure was enacted. While courts and legislatures have not yet done enough to promote desegregation, Kozol argues that their potential to do so remains and should be pursued.

Chapter 11 argues that underfunded, segregated schools fail to provide students with adequate educational opportunities, regardless of how energetically advocates of segregation invoke the language of progressive school reform or how insistently students are told they will succeed. Kozol presents this as evidence of the failure of President Bush's No Child Left Behind policy. Despite its appealing name, the policy's promotion of underfunded, segregated schools means that many children are systematically left behind in educational opportunity. Kozol calls No Child Left Behind a lie — and, because so many people are willing to believe it, a deadly one.

Kozol also contends that No Child Left Behind is one more dimension of a 28-year Republican-controlled presidency's encouragement of school segregation and betrayal of the nation's children. He examines other "deadly lies" as well, including standards-based reform that relies on positive thinking and willpower to close test-score gaps — producing students who perform adequately on individual tests but are no more genuinely competent — and small-school initiatives that address segregation locally but can themselves produce segregated small schools.

Conclusion

Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation explores several interrelated themes about educational racial segregation in the United States. Kozol argues that educational segregation dishonors notable civil rights heroes by paying lip service to their struggle while quietly reassembling segregation; that segregation stacks the deck against students from an early age — and students know it; that educators whose students are trapped in segregated schools attempt strategies to compensate but those strategies are often oppressive and harmful; that children in segregated schools are conditioned to train for and expect jobs rather than to aspire to the higher horizons of quality education; that some educators eliminate elements of quality education because those elements are not tested; that segregation is hardening the dividing lines and widening the educational and opportunity gaps between white and nonwhite children; that underfunding excludes the physical and functional resources that make learning possible; and that there are false promises and deadly lies on both sides — among those who promote segregation and those forced to react to it.

Kozol also argues that segregation can be effectively fought by individual schools, school systems, courts, legislation, and a revived civil rights movement, and that some educators still manage to help their students overcome some of segregation's worst effects. State and federal legislatures and justice systems can combat segregation through statutes, a potential Constitutional Amendment, and courts empowered to enforce those laws. Overall, Kozol's book is compelling and important, though some conclusions go too far — "apartheid" is too strong a word for what is happening. Nevertheless, the underlying situation is alarming and demands a serious response from state and federal legislatures and justice systems.

Kozol, J. (2005). The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group.