5) In these chapters, Kozol looks at the No Child Left Behind Act, as well as high stakes testing, and says that these two factors have increased the parody in quality in public schools. Kozol is making the point that no matter how much motivation and will to succeed these kids and teachers have, if they do not have the funding to do it, then they will fail. He also talks about the “standard-based reform”, which tries to address the scoring gap between schools that are wealthy and schools that are poor, by using positive thinking and willpower to succeed. The main reason why Kozol is not fully supportive of this is because he says that it only benefits the students short term, in that their competency does not improve. Although there are so many negative things going on in the public school system, Kozol point to a few examples of hope, specifically a teacher and principal at P.S 30 in New York.
4) “If the officials who repeat this incantation honestly believe all kids can learn, why aren’t they fighting to make sure these kids can learn in the same good schools their own children attend?” (Kozol 266).
“Most parents recognize that certain things that matter in a child’s education do require hard work and well-organized sequential processes of learning and expect their children’s teachers to provide the framework in which this is possible” (Kozol 270).
“I would argue that ‘the best hope’ lies in small schools that are also making conscientious efforts to appeal to a diversity of students rather than permit themselves to reproduce or to intensify the pre-existing isolation of their student populations” (Kozol 277).
“What these policies and practices will do, what they are doing now, is expand the vast divide between two separate worlds of future cognitive activity, political sagacity, social health and economic status, while they undermine the capability of children of minorities to thrive with confidence and satisfaction in the mainstream of American society” (Kozol 284).
3) Scoring gap- Kozol says that the scoring gap between high and low socioeconomic schools on standardized tests has become disturbingly large.
Segregation- Kozol talks about how the public schools with fewer amounts of minorities tend to have more success then those that have a majority of minorities. He says this is relevant, because many of the lower socioeconomic minority schools do not have the funds and means to help their students succeed.
Standard-Based Reform- Kozol says that the students and teachers are focusing too much time on doing well on the standardized tests, that the students’ competency level fails to increase.
2) I think Kozol presents a good point when he says that standard-based reform only helps out the students and teachers in the short run. This causes teachers to solely prepare the students for the standardized tests, and thus the students do not learn anything in depth. Their competency also suffers, because they have to digest so much information about the tests, that they do not learn much of anything else. I also remember taking a mission trip to Brooklyn when I was in 9th grade, and seeing the kinds of schools that Kozol describes in his book. Looking back on that experience, I now realize the kind of education that they were getting. It makes me sad to know that the students in the lower socioeconomic schools are not getting the same kind of opportunities for success as others.
1) Why even today is there such a big gap in learning between high socioeconomic schools and low socioeconomic schools?
It does seem odd that in the richest nation with the most well educated population that we would actually still allow an achievement, opportunity, economic gap to exist in our schools and communities. Essentially it comes down to priorities. We should ask ourselves each day "what have I done today to close the gap between the haves and have nots."
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