9134 in the collection
Kozol Criticizes Retreat from Brown Decision
Most cities have undermined the legacy of Brown vs. the Board of Education to settle instead for the unattainable doctrine of separate and equal, author Jonathan Kozol said Saturday in Milwaukee.
The critic of the state of education in America's cities has long argued for an end to the school funding disparities that he says give children in upper-income suburbs an advantage.
But during a meeting with educators and activists Saturday afternoon, he spent most of his time asking questions about schools in Wisconsin and deploring the shift toward neighborhood schools in many cities, including Milwaukee.
He argued that neighborhood schools are a modern-day disguise for segregation, and lamented that so much of the fervor for integration has been lost.
"Because integration has been done imperfectly up until now, are you in Milwaukee ready to get rid of it?" Kozol said. "If so, stop celebrating Brown and start celebrating Plessy."
Kozol referred to Plessy vs. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court case - overturned by Brown - that established the doctrine of "separate but equal."
"Those who have ripped apart the legacy of Brown do it under the popular expression 'neighborhood schools,' " Kozol said. "I wonder if the people in Wisconsin who suddenly praise the glories of neighborhood schools realize that this was the slogan of George Wallace, that they are repeating the code words of leaders in the segregation movement of 40 years ago."
"If we are going to say so long to Brown v. Board, we ought to be blunt about it and stop celebrating it every time May 17 rolls around," Kozol said later.
Jennifer Epps, a 2000 graduate of Milwaukee Public Schools' Riverside University High School and who attended the discussion, said she agrees with many of the policy changes that Kozol espouses.
But she said some African-Americans are disillusioned with integration. "They are not disillusioned with integration in its ideal, they are talking about integration as it has been implemented," she said. "That's where the disillusion comes from, the inability of people in power to meaningfully implement integration."
Kozol met with MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos and a group of about a dozen people, including leaders of Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH) and the Institute for Wisconsin's Future, which advocates for more spending on schools.
Kozol blasted what he called the nationwide "obsession" with high-stakes testing, which he argues puts inner-city students at a disadvantage.
"Too many schools spend more than a third of all teaching time on simply drilling children for exams," he said. "This is not true of the best suburban schools. It's a characteristic of low-funded, inner-city schools."
He spoke Saturday night at the annual banquet hosted by MICAH.
Kozol's first book, "Death at an Early Age," recounted his experiences teaching grade school in a poor Boston neighborhood. In one of his best known books, "Savage Inequalities," he compared in painstaking detail the resources and education available to students in cities such as Chicago with their suburban counterparts.
— Sarah Carr
Journal-Sentinel
2004-06-05
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 366
[1] 2 3 4 5 6 Next >> Last >>
