Reddit reviews Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools
We found 4 Reddit comments about Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Kozol believes that children from poor families are cheated out of a future by grossly underequipped, understaffed and underfunded schools in U.S. inner cities and less affluent suburbs.
this idea can be pretty much translated into any other colonized region
REVIEW
>The great Indian obsession portrays the journey of engineering in India right from its advent to the present time where engineering degree and IT jobs have become the biggest obsession among the Indians. For middle-class household, an engineering degree is a ticket to a better life and reputation in society.
>Apart from its benefit, the author has highlighted many detrimental side effects of this obsession. There is undue pressure on young shoulders to be amongst toppers both from parents and society. Failure in doing so many times results in depression, the stigma of looser and in extreme situation suicide as well which is becoming increasingly common.
>The obsession for engineering has led to the advent of flourishing coaching industry in India to crack the competitive exams. The author has written in detail about the beginning of coaching centers and its rise and rise.
>The book also brings out the darker side of the Indian education system. Pathetic government school conditions, expensive private schools, and colleges, donations, the uselessness of primary education, flourishing tuition centers, reservation issue, the importance of caste over merit.
It's a hard-hitting book and an eye-opener. The book does not dissuade from pursuing an engineering degree, but the author just wants from parents and society not to crush the dreams and aspirations of young ones only for better financial health.
It's a must-read book.
>education has no clear purpose. That’s not a criticism; it’s just an observation that there are numerous conflicting visions of what education is “for.” What are we actually trying to do for kids by making them go to school, and why are we trying to do it? If it’s an attempt to help kids understand things they’ll need to know in their daily lives, much of contemporary education makes little sense: Very few of us will use chemistry or algebra or French. But it would be very helpful to know how to cook a good breakfast, negotiate a pay raise, or defuse an argument. If education is about making “model citizens,” well, we would probably expect civics to be treated in a little less cursory a fashion. Maybe education is about teaching job skills, providing abilities that will prove useful in making a living. Maybe it nourishes souls and expands horizons. Maybe it’s just a way to keep as many kids as possible in a room together and therefore out of trouble. Or maybe it doesn’t do much of anything at all.
Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money]
(https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste-ebook/dp/B076ZY8S8J)
>Despite being immensely popular--and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. In this explosive book, Bryan Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skill but to certify their intelligence, work ethic, and conformity—in other words, to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As and casually forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for the average worker but instead in runaway credential inflation, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely if ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy.
>Caplan draws on the latest social science to show how the labor market values grades over knowledge, and why the more education your rivals have, the more you need to impress employers. He explains why graduation is our society's top conformity signal, and why even the most useless degrees can certify employability. He advocates two major policy responses. The first is educational austerity. The government needs to sharply cut education funding to curb this wasteful rat race. The second is more vocational education because practical skills are more socially valuable than teaching students how to outshine their peers.
>Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense—The Case against Education points the way.
>Noted radical economists point out that lack of equal opportunity in American education is a reflection of the weaknesses of capitalism and offer guidelines for the implementation of a more democratic, egalitarian system.
>For two years, beginning in 1988, Jonathan Kozol visited schools in neighborhoods across the country, from Illinois to Washington D.C., and from New York to San Antonio. He spoke with teachers, principals, superintendents, and, most important, children. What he found was devastating. Not only were schools for rich and poor blatantly unequal, the gulf between the two extremes was widening—and it has widened since. The urban schools he visited were overcrowded and understaffed and lacked the basic elements of learning—including books and, all too often, classrooms for the students.
In Savage Inequalities, Kozol delivers a searing examination of the extremes of wealth and poverty and calls into question the reality of equal opportunity in our nation’s schools.
cealert.com/genetics-reveals-being-rich-gives-you-a-better-chance-at-graduating-uni-than-being-talented)
>The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents.
I'm not gonna link it but, it mentions something in passing that relates to college students
>“The idolization of progress leads to the opposite of progress,” this is his claim
>The objective mind pervades social life in all its branches. We worship industry, technology, and nationality without making sense of these categories.
the objective here means focusing on the ends, so it would make sense to pump out as much product as you can cheaply for max profit
Subjective on the other hand focuses on the means, so the goal is mass production but is it a good idea to do it without thinking about the impact on the environment? this is where people would argue for green energy which is the subjective mind
however, everyone is thinking with an objective mind, so green energy is off the table because earlier he mentions truth is reduced only as a tool of assessing (control of nature) bascially productivity and science (by science he means, by adding acid and a base we can get a salt and h2o if i remember chemistry correctly), so we are unable to argue about the truth of environmental care because our idea of truth cannot be used in that means. clear example is climate change, science proves climate change is real, but people in positions of power who can do the most about it (companies who mass produce) argue it will hamper productivity and profit (objective mind truth).
he also mentions that this way of thinking led to an unoriginal lifestyle
>The idea of happiness has been reduced to a banality to coincide with leading the kind of normal life that serious religious thought has often criticized.
its also important to mention, the normal life, is sold to us by mass media and the culture industry, bascially people on TV and Ads, social media tell you what is the normal life of happiness one should pursue. the pursuit of this lifestyle is costly so you have to be able to make yourself a skilled worker in order to get enough money to live the happy life, this leads into the next quote
>...Economic significance today is measured in usefulness to the structure of power, not the needs of all.
The individual must prove their worth to one of the groups in engaged in the struggle for control of the economy.
This bascially says that your value to people/society is based on how "useful" you are to current power structure, and you must compete with people to prove your worth to a company so that the company competes for you in the global scales of things to provide for you so that you can live that normal life that is critized heavily by religious thought, that is if you are deem worthy to them compared to all the other competiting individuals seeking that job
Horkhiemer would argue at the end of the day the same mindset that students have, who compete with one another to display economic signifigance, are similar to those in position of power who deny climate change due to productivity issues. why? because your usefulness to society is how you can help prop up the existing power structures, not how you can fight climate change which is a needs of all people. you prove your worth to such power structures so you can live the happy normal life dictated by you mass media and social media.
That school. Jesus. This is what Kozol outlined in his 1991 book Savage Inequalities.
The idea behind public school is that all of the money should be put in a big pot and allocated evenly. Instead, it goes by tax base and a school in Laguna Nigel or Palo Alto or Rancho Sante Fe is going to have a better school. I'm not going to fact check this, but I think a high school in Texas has a 100 million dollar football field. Schools in flint have lead drinking water.
It is hard to begrudge people wanting the best for their kid, but it flies in the face of a meritocracy. I just rewatched School Ties, and it is based on Hollywood producer Dick Wolf's experience at an east coast prep school. I was struck by how kids are groomed to be in charge, even if they are not capable. It is not much of a meritocracy sometimes.
Conversely, you are seeing a small backlash in California over the crazy obsession with early childhood education. I was shocked to hear Kara Swisher talking about how she doesn't care about her kids grades and argues that grade school doesn't matter.
Sorry, just quick off the top of my head. I'll send you more tomorrow after I ask my wife.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iiNts6rVfQY
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/countryboys/
Typically required reading for new teachers-https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Inequalities-Children-Americas-Schools/dp/0770435688
Even though this is rather stereotypical and bleeding heart of me, Savage Inequalities is the book that really, truly helped me make the conscious choice to become a public school teacher. It is the book that I remind myself about when I become discouraged.