Segregation?

I got an alumni update email from Tufts, and was disappointed to find that I had missed a lecture by the educator and social activist Jonathan Kozol. I read my first book of his, There are no Children Here when I was taking a class entitled "The Child and the City" back at Hampshire in about 1994. The class was about the plight of the urban children, and was one of my first education classes.

Kozol's lecture at Tufts addressed the topic “Still Separate, Still Unequal: The Continuing Decapitation of Potential in America’s Apartheid Schools.” He makes a strong case for calling out US schools for continuing to segregate.

As a public school teacher in an urban district, working primarily with "at-risk" students, I have to say I agree that there still is segregation, though it is not solely based on race. It is, however very clearly socioeconomic. My school is not the "dumping grounds for poor black boys" that the district fears it is or will be, but it is almost entirely non-white, and almost entirely poor students. And our faculty is mostly educated, white women. It does make you think.

The article about Kozol's talk is here: Public shame:The way America pays for education puts a price tag on our kids’ heads.