Did I Go to the Wrong Meeting?
L. and I went to see Jonathan Kozol last night, at Greenfield High School. The room was packed, largely with teachers. Kozol told stories of the South Bronx, of the children from his books, Pineapple and Mario. He said his hero was Mr. Rogers, who died recently. He told us about marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in Boston and he said that public schools in America today are more segregated than they have been at any time since 1968, when King was killed. In his latest book, Shame of a Nation he calls it "apartheid."
I agree with Mr. Kozol. And so did most of the teachers in the room, I think. Greenfield Community College President Robert Pura introduced Kozol with what sounded like a white paper on school funding inequality. And then Kate Finnegan followed up with another lecture on public education, as a way of introduction. I almost fell asleep.
Kozol put it bluntly. His successful friends, his old Harvard friends, they have him over for dinner and after dinner, when they're serving coffee, they say, "Jonathan, do you really think you can just throw money at the problem?" His response is, "Yes!" He says, "I don't know a better way to spend money than putting a new roof on a leaky school building, or spending money to take 38 students out of one classroom and put them into two." The raw statistics that he cites are per pupil expenditures. Where George W. Bush went to school at Andover, tuition is $40,000 a year. At the schools Kozol examines in his book, in the South Bronx, the spending is $11,000 per student per year. And that's in New York City, where everything costs more.
Kozol says we need a new civil rights movement, that we need to shame the older generation into realizing that education is our future. He said not to waste time with "polite attempts to fiddle with state funding formulas." But, really, after all that back patting, what happens?
Across town last night, Greenfield Mayor Chris Forgey held a public forum on her budget. This is a budget that directly affects the schools in Greenfield, the town where I live. Kozol says schools in Franklin County are in the same boat with the urban schools he talks about in his books. But only 15 people went to that budget meeting, and 10 of them were town employees, according to my old pal Arn Albertini at The Recorder. Was I at the right meeting? I'm not so sure.
I agree with Mr. Kozol. And so did most of the teachers in the room, I think. Greenfield Community College President Robert Pura introduced Kozol with what sounded like a white paper on school funding inequality. And then Kate Finnegan followed up with another lecture on public education, as a way of introduction. I almost fell asleep.
Kozol put it bluntly. His successful friends, his old Harvard friends, they have him over for dinner and after dinner, when they're serving coffee, they say, "Jonathan, do you really think you can just throw money at the problem?" His response is, "Yes!" He says, "I don't know a better way to spend money than putting a new roof on a leaky school building, or spending money to take 38 students out of one classroom and put them into two." The raw statistics that he cites are per pupil expenditures. Where George W. Bush went to school at Andover, tuition is $40,000 a year. At the schools Kozol examines in his book, in the South Bronx, the spending is $11,000 per student per year. And that's in New York City, where everything costs more.
Kozol says we need a new civil rights movement, that we need to shame the older generation into realizing that education is our future. He said not to waste time with "polite attempts to fiddle with state funding formulas." But, really, after all that back patting, what happens?
Across town last night, Greenfield Mayor Chris Forgey held a public forum on her budget. This is a budget that directly affects the schools in Greenfield, the town where I live. Kozol says schools in Franklin County are in the same boat with the urban schools he talks about in his books. But only 15 people went to that budget meeting, and 10 of them were town employees, according to my old pal Arn Albertini at The Recorder. Was I at the right meeting? I'm not so sure.