The Inequities of Education

Just finished reading Kozol's Savage Inequities, and I would like to think that the disparities he describes in our public school systems have been resolved--but I know better. Although some change must have taken place since the late 1980s he describes, I suspect much of what many children experience is still based on the "low foundation" established through education finance.

The low foundation is level of subsistance that will raise a district to a point at which its schools are able to provide a "minimum" or "basic" education, but not an education on the level found in the rich districts (p. 208).

This definition allows that every child has "an equal minimum" but not necessarily what they need for what any educator would define as minimum. It is difficult to fathom that anyone with any common sense (or sense of decency for that matter) could go into the "poor" facilities that Kozol describes and call them adequate.

I am not so idealistic to think that we can ever achieve real equity in education, but we can certainly continue to minimize the financial gaps between the poorest and richest school districts so that all students have access to a realistic minimum of resources and facilities.