Savage Inequalities of Public Education - Jonathan Kozol

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to converse over breakfast with a retired African-American school principal from the NY Board of Education. During our conversation, we discussed the inequities which exist in schooling - and how in one of the most powerful nations in the world, there is still a massive divide between rich and poor.

This really became clear to me two Friday's ago when Project 1:17 was in the Bronx with Bill Wilson's Metro Ministries. We were doing visitation in a series of apartment buildings which looked for like Falluja than New York! When 'Yogi Bear' (which M.M. calls their sidewalk Sunday School) stopped by, the grey war-zone of the South Bronx became a cacophony of kids who happily emerged from the hell holes they are living in - to enjoy a moment of shalom (and get a bag a candy!).

I've lived in Cape Town where I expected to see poverty in the Cape Flats and townships, but what I witnessed in the South Bronx that day enraged me that this could take place less than 15 minutes from where they shoot Donald Trump's 'The Apprentice"!

As I shared these experiences with my retired principal friend, we got onto a discussion about schooling in America. Jonathan Kozol in his book Savage Inequalities explores major US cities where this type of Dickensian best/worst divide continues to exist. Although it's an older book, it illustrates the 'us' and 'them' phenomena in cities like St. Louis, Chicago, New York City, Camden, Washington D.C., and San Antonio.

He says:

"Anyone who visits in the schools of East St. Louis, even for a short time, comes away profoundly shaken. These are innocent children, after all. They have done nothing wrong. They have committed no crime. They are too young to have offended us in any way at all. One searches for some way to understand why a society as rich and, frequently, as generous as ours would leave these children in their penury and squalor for so long -- and with so little public indignation. Is this just a strange mistake of history? Is it unusual? Is it an American anomaly?"

Later, he quotes Lord Acton - who wrote a century and a half ago that:

"In a country where there is not distinction of class... a child is not born to the station of its parents, but with an indefinite claim to all the prizes that can be won by thought and labor. It is in conformity with the theory of equality... to give as near as possible to every youth an equal state in life... (Americans) are unwilling that any should be deprived in childhood of the means of competition." (p.83)

When I witnessed a 10 year old boy walking out of a room which billowed out a cloud of marijuana, I was struck senseless! How does this kid have an equal opportunity?

Never before have I felt more convinced of my calling to take all the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual resources I have - and dedicating them to raising up generations of leaders who will give up their dream to make it in 'Manhattan' to help kids make it in the South Bronx.

Where do you live? What savage inequalities exist in your community? What are you going to do about it?

Ghandi summarized it nicely:"We must become the change we seek in our world."

Steve