Spencer Burdette - Shame of the Nation Blog Post #2
Argument
While the first chapter of Kozol's book was more expositional, the second chapter is where he begins to expose what is causing the racial inequities in America's education system.
The main focus of this second chapter was to argue that the repression of minority students is lifelong, starting young and continuing through their developmental years and into high school. This argument is embodied by this quote:
"...the governmentally administered diminishment of value in the children of the poor begins even before the age of five or six when they begin their years of formal education in the public schools. It starts during their infant years and toddler years when hundreds of thousands of children in low-income neighborhoods are locked out of the opportunity for preschool education for no reason but the accident of birth and budgetary choices of the government"(Kozol 49, 50).
In this paragraph, Kozol is making the claim that the the government has a conceited effort to make children of poor parents actually worth less than children of rich parents. He develops this argument mainly with statistics and anecdotes throughout the book, appealing to logos and pathos. Kozol returns to the girl he introduced in the first chapter, Pineapple, and describes the inequity her district faces: "The median salary of teachers in Pineapple's neighborhood was less than $46,000 in 2002-2003, the lowest in the city"(Kozol 46).
Now this statistic was disturbing enough on its own, but there was more to the picture than that. Kozol then went on to describe how an affluent neighborhood in Greenwich Village raised the funds to pay for the salary of an additional fourth grade teacher - $46,000 to be exact - totally from their own wallets(Kozol 47). This was all because the class size of the fourth grade was likely to increase from 26 to 32, a change which one parent said "'would have a devastating impact' on her son"(Kozol 47). I, for one, find that painfully ironic.
The most important part so far of Kozol's argument is the importance of preschool on the quality of a student's education. He begins by stating that "...affluent parents pay surprisingly large sums of money to enroll their youngsters in extraordinary early-education programs...[which] cost as much as $22,000 for a full-day program"(Kozol 50). I find it particularly absurd that parents would be willing to cough up that much cash for a program that teaches their kids how to differentiate colors and hold a pencil, to be quite honest. But it is put into perspective by the next piece of information he states.
According to government data "of approximately 250,000 four year olds in New York State in 2002-2002, only about 25 percent..were believed to be enrolled in the state-funded preschool program...and typically in two-and-a-half-hour sessions"(Kozol 51).
To me, this statistic shows that the main reason for failing high schools is failing preschools. He even mentions later on that some students went to elementary school not knowing how to hold a pencil, or that pages read left to right(Kozol 52, 53). All of the statistics he brings up serve the purpose of showing the differences between upper-class and lower-class education experiences in early life, and he has done so with shocking clarity.
One quote that drives his point home comes after he describes the thrusting of standardized testing on children, at the ripe age of eight, that will in all likelihood determine their fate for the rest of their academic lives. He muses that "[t]here is something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds an inner-city child only eight years old 'accountable' for her performance on a high-stakes standardized exam but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbing her of what they gave their own kids six or seven years before"(Kozol 53, 54).
Here, Kozol is combining his previous arguments about the importance of early education and his argument about the general political apathy towards equity in education in one cutting paragraph that demonstrates perfectly what is wrong with America's views on school. The main takeaway is that Kozol wants the reader to understand that our system does not reward hard work or talent nearly as much as it rewards having opportunity piled on you from a young age. If there is only one thing I learned from this chapter, it is that.
I believe that this all comes as such a shock to me because I was given such great opportunities when I was younger - if I remember correctly, I attended both full-year, full-day preschool and kindergarten. So, with me being one of those people that Kozol chooses to compare with the students who are victimized by the system, I feel almost a certain guilt at my wealth of opportunity and support that I've had over the years. But, it also instills me with a great sense of responsibility to take all that I have been given and use it to its full potential. For the sake of kids like Pineapple, I feel fully obliged to do all that I can to succeed and then work to make sure that every child gets the same opportunity I did. I can only hope that future generations won't have to grapple with this same issue.
While the first chapter of Kozol's book was more expositional, the second chapter is where he begins to expose what is causing the racial inequities in America's education system.
The main focus of this second chapter was to argue that the repression of minority students is lifelong, starting young and continuing through their developmental years and into high school. This argument is embodied by this quote:
"...the governmentally administered diminishment of value in the children of the poor begins even before the age of five or six when they begin their years of formal education in the public schools. It starts during their infant years and toddler years when hundreds of thousands of children in low-income neighborhoods are locked out of the opportunity for preschool education for no reason but the accident of birth and budgetary choices of the government"(Kozol 49, 50).
In this paragraph, Kozol is making the claim that the the government has a conceited effort to make children of poor parents actually worth less than children of rich parents. He develops this argument mainly with statistics and anecdotes throughout the book, appealing to logos and pathos. Kozol returns to the girl he introduced in the first chapter, Pineapple, and describes the inequity her district faces: "The median salary of teachers in Pineapple's neighborhood was less than $46,000 in 2002-2003, the lowest in the city"(Kozol 46).
Now this statistic was disturbing enough on its own, but there was more to the picture than that. Kozol then went on to describe how an affluent neighborhood in Greenwich Village raised the funds to pay for the salary of an additional fourth grade teacher - $46,000 to be exact - totally from their own wallets(Kozol 47). This was all because the class size of the fourth grade was likely to increase from 26 to 32, a change which one parent said "'would have a devastating impact' on her son"(Kozol 47). I, for one, find that painfully ironic.
The most important part so far of Kozol's argument is the importance of preschool on the quality of a student's education. He begins by stating that "...affluent parents pay surprisingly large sums of money to enroll their youngsters in extraordinary early-education programs...[which] cost as much as $22,000 for a full-day program"(Kozol 50). I find it particularly absurd that parents would be willing to cough up that much cash for a program that teaches their kids how to differentiate colors and hold a pencil, to be quite honest. But it is put into perspective by the next piece of information he states.
According to government data "of approximately 250,000 four year olds in New York State in 2002-2002, only about 25 percent..were believed to be enrolled in the state-funded preschool program...and typically in two-and-a-half-hour sessions"(Kozol 51).
To me, this statistic shows that the main reason for failing high schools is failing preschools. He even mentions later on that some students went to elementary school not knowing how to hold a pencil, or that pages read left to right(Kozol 52, 53). All of the statistics he brings up serve the purpose of showing the differences between upper-class and lower-class education experiences in early life, and he has done so with shocking clarity.
One quote that drives his point home comes after he describes the thrusting of standardized testing on children, at the ripe age of eight, that will in all likelihood determine their fate for the rest of their academic lives. He muses that "[t]here is something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds an inner-city child only eight years old 'accountable' for her performance on a high-stakes standardized exam but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbing her of what they gave their own kids six or seven years before"(Kozol 53, 54).
Here, Kozol is combining his previous arguments about the importance of early education and his argument about the general political apathy towards equity in education in one cutting paragraph that demonstrates perfectly what is wrong with America's views on school. The main takeaway is that Kozol wants the reader to understand that our system does not reward hard work or talent nearly as much as it rewards having opportunity piled on you from a young age. If there is only one thing I learned from this chapter, it is that.
I believe that this all comes as such a shock to me because I was given such great opportunities when I was younger - if I remember correctly, I attended both full-year, full-day preschool and kindergarten. So, with me being one of those people that Kozol chooses to compare with the students who are victimized by the system, I feel almost a certain guilt at my wealth of opportunity and support that I've had over the years. But, it also instills me with a great sense of responsibility to take all that I have been given and use it to its full potential. For the sake of kids like Pineapple, I feel fully obliged to do all that I can to succeed and then work to make sure that every child gets the same opportunity I did. I can only hope that future generations won't have to grapple with this same issue.
Spencer,
ReplyDeleteGood job on your second blog post! I like your commentary on Kozol’s argument in Chapter 2. The section of the book you chose to mention, comparing low-income schools to the Baby Ivies also stood out to me due to the extreme pricing contrast. It’s absurd that such a basic education could be valued so high. While it is obvious that a lack of funding causes schools to be unable to teach these simple skills, do you think that there is a maximum value for an education? Or is a 22,000 dollar education really worth 22,000 dollars? Meaning: if schools had more diverse household incomes, would the value of the more wealthy children’s education would decrease?
As a reader, my favorite part of your blog was the last paragraph. Your final thoughts are relatable and insightful. You mention that you want to share the opportunities you received as a child. Do you know how you plan on doing so?
Thanks, Cate. I appreciate your comment. I believe your shock at the amount of money people spent on their children's education is a response many people shared after reading this blog post. I think your comment about the value of education decreasing are particularly interesting. Maybe if those preschools(the Baby Ivies)were made publicly funded and available to all children, the overall quality may decrease, but I think the monetary value would most likely stay the same. Thanks again for you insight!
Delete-Spencer Burdette
Spencer, good use of specific examples to develop your ideas. As you point out, pre-school can be an indicator for later success, not because it focuses on colors of crayons, but because it emphasizes education, and the structures that go into education, as important. It would be interesting to see whether students who participate in pre-school programs read earlier than those who don't. Which might not be a cause and effect because of the pre-school program itself, but rather a correlation because of the value placed on learning and reading by those who can afford pre-school. Early exposure to books is one indicator of later success.
ReplyDeleteOn a separate note, make sure you are keeping up with the reading schedule your group created.