Savage Inequalities by Kozol: Race, Poverty & School Equity

Overview of Kozol's Argument and Scope

Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools may be the most depressing work of non-fiction that should be on every person's must-read list. Kozol divides his book into six chapters, each of which examines the specific conditions faced by children in a particular city or region. The conditions he describes throughout the book are so far removed from the average middle-class American's experience that they almost seem unbelievable. Most readers, including this reviewer, may have been vaguely aware that some disparity in educational quality persisted, but had absolutely no idea of its true extent.

The conditions Kozol describes are not mere reminders of the horror of segregated school facilities that the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education demonstrated to the Supreme Court. On the contrary, these conditions are far worse than anything that has entered the public discourse about educational disparity in the last several decades. They harken back to the era of slavery, when it was actually illegal to teach African-American children to read. The depraved conditions Kozol documents are so horrific that it is unrealistic to expect any child to learn in such circumstances.

City-by-City Findings: Infrastructure and Funding Gaps

Kozol opens his book with a discussion of East St. Louis, Illinois, an impoverished, predominantly Black city. He does not begin by focusing on the schools. Instead, he tries to convey the totality of life in East St. Louis. For most readers, the description sounds like a portrait of a developing nation: no functioning garbage collection, local officials with neither the power nor the resources to implement meaningful change, and toxic pollution that contributes to widespread illness. Before children ever enter a school, they are already facing severe disadvantages compared to the average middle-class child. Yet once Kozol describes the school conditions themselves, it becomes apparent that these children simply did not have a chance. East St. Louis High School is literally a decrepit ruin. Its facilities are so far below any acceptable standard that they pose a physical danger to students. The bathrooms are non-functioning, lack toilet paper, and their odor permeates the building. Classrooms are in similar disrepair. School materials, when available at all, are badly outdated. The school is severely understaffed, and many teachers who remain appear to have lost the desire to teach. Depression and despair have permeated the student body; most students simply see no future for themselves.

In the second chapter, Kozol examines North Lawndale, Illinois, a bedroom community of Chicago that descended into gang territory after nearby factories closed and unemployment soared. At Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School, students ranked among the city's poorest, and their life prospects were startlingly grim. Of one kindergarten class, fewer than 40% were expected to graduate from high school, with only a single college graduate projected from the entire cohort. Kozol did find one genuinely enthusiastic teacher at Bethune—a contrast to East St. Louis High—but a single dedicated teacher is insufficient to overcome the scale of educational disadvantage the school presents. The chapter's deeper focus is on the stark contrast in per-pupil spending between deteriorating urban schools and wealthy, predominantly white suburban schools nearby. Kozol examines the phenomenon of white flight from North Lawndale, noting that middle-class families moved to the suburbs as the neighborhood declined. He also offers pointed commentary on those who fled: they appear indifferent to the conditions urban children face. The chapter's title, "Other People's Children," captures that indifference precisely. That said, Kozol also acknowledges the economic complexity: scenarios in which redirecting resources to impoverished schools would reduce funding for wealthier ones. It may be overly simplistic to conclude that people simply do not care about urban children; some may be willing to help, but not at the perceived expense of their own.

In the third chapter, Kozol turns to New York City's public schools. He visits three schools within the same district to illustrate how severe disparities can exist even within a single system. Public School 261 occupies a converted roller-skating rink; P.S. 79 is severely overcrowded; and P.S. 24 receives substantially more funding and offers far better facilities. Kozol uses these three schools to show how funding allocations within districts are largely determined by surrounding property values. Students at P.S. 261 received approximately $6,000 each in educational funding, while students at P.S. 24 received approximately $11,000. Because less affluent neighborhoods are disproportionately minority neighborhoods, this class-based funding structure produces a clear disparate impact on minority students.

In the fourth chapter, Kozol travels to Camden, New Jersey—at the time one of the poorest large cities in the United States—to examine whether higher spending on education actually produces better outcomes. He takes on the view held by many in affluent areas: that pouring money into urban schools is futile because the students are somehow unable or unwilling to learn. At Pyne Point Junior High and Camden High, Kozol again finds conditions incompatible with learning. The principal at Camden High reports a dropout rate exceeding 50%. Without a high school diploma, Kozol argues, these students have no realistic path forward.

The fifth chapter takes Kozol to Washington, D.C., where he visits an elementary school and speaks with young children about their visions of the future. At that age, the children remain optimistic. Yet Kozol reveals that both the children and their families already understand that poverty shapes educational opportunity, and that families alone cannot solve this problem without systemic change. He also returns to the class divide in assumptions about education: affluent people tend to believe that money cannot remedy poor educational outcomes in impoverished areas, attributing the problem instead to students' backgrounds and family environments. Kozol challenges this view by introducing parents who are genuinely engaged in their children's education. These parents argue that without adequate funding for facilities, up-to-date materials, and qualified teachers, even a family's strongest efforts have minimal impact.

In the sixth chapter, Kozol examines San Antonio, Texas, and the Edgewood school district, which was the subject of a federal lawsuit. Some Edgewood residents paid the highest tax rate in the area yet received only $37 per child in school funds, while other districts received approximately $50,000 per student. Although these funding arrangements were found to violate the Equal Protection Clause, the district was not required to remedy the disparity—a conclusion Kozol presents as emblematic of the political failure to correct systemic inequality.

A middle-class reader cannot help but wonder whether Kozol is exaggerating. The mainstream media does not report on these inner-city conditions, and what Kozol describes matches conditions found in developing nations. The people most affected are overwhelmingly minorities living in the lowest socioeconomic stratum—so impoverished that escape from their circumstances is functionally impossible. Kozol documents an almost inescapable cycle of poverty, despair, and educational failure. Even more disheartening is that when a single individual does manage to rise out of this poverty, that example is used by the affluent to argue that no systemic changes are needed. The possibility that a child might succeed is treated as more important than the probability that a child will fail.

Race, Class, and the Politics of Educational Inequality

The racist implications of these educational conditions are impossible to ignore. The deplorable state of minority schools reinforces racial hierarchy by keeping non-white students in a structurally subordinate position. The presence of minority students in some affluent suburban schools does not erase the fact that race remains the single greatest predictor of socioeconomic status in the United States. Non-white Americans are significantly more likely than white Americans to live in poverty, and poverty translates directly into political powerlessness. Throughout the book, Kozol documents community members' efforts to improve school conditions, only to have their concerns dismissed or ignored by government entities at every level.

Although the Supreme Court mandated equality in public schooling during the 1960s, it is evident that the promise of equal education has not been fulfilled for vast numbers of American students. As scholars of educational inequality in the United States have long noted, race continues to be a reliable predictor of educational opportunity—and Kozol's on-the-ground reporting makes that abstraction viscerally real.

References

Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools. Harper Collins.