Have you ever read something that made you so angry that you had to put down the book or article just to calm down? Earlier this year, I came across a book in which I would have to stop reading every few pages because I was so angry with the content.The book is titled The Shame of the Nation and its author is Jonathan Kozol. The premise of the book is to show the clear and present danger of the de facto segregation that is happening with our nation’s schools. This is happening because of the drastic economic disparity one finds in urban areas. Sadly, living in those urban areas, the majority of people suffering from that disparity are minorities. Look at a public school in the Bronx or in Yonkers and one in Scarsdale, NY and don’t tell me that you don’t see the difference in infrastructure, materials, programs and et cetera. Sadly, this is not even separate but equal; it’s more like separate, unequal and alone without a voice.

I understand that it is the community that surrounds a school system which pays to have that school function and operate. Of course home owners in middle-class and upper middle-class communities want the best for their children and they are at an income level that allows them to pay the taxes that support good schools or even send them to private schools. But what about the working poor and the others who struggle? Must we condemn their children to lives of misery? They too want a bright future for their children though they struggle. Why is there this thinking that “schools in ghettoized communities must settle for a different set of academic and career goals” than schools serving middle-and upper-class children? Why is it that children in poor schools get stuck preparing for the constant testing with ritual memorization thanks to the No Child Left Behind failure; while children in well to do schools get robust and enriching curriculums?

I think a reviewer of Kozol’s book on Amazon.com said it best when they said, “all school districts are vulnerable to ‘teaching to the program’ but such actions hurt already short-changed inner city students much more than the suburbanite. Because the former school has money to spare outside of the testing programs, compliance with federal and state testing program requirements (no matter how unrealistic the benchmark definitions of student success) is easier to absorb. The same school struggling to keep working toilets is not as fortunate.”

I don’t think privatizing the public school system is the solution. I firmly believe that there are certain institutions that must be kept public and education is one of them. When you privatize things like schools they become focused on the bottom line and less about providing the service to the people. Privatizing the now public education system would result in an even more stringent testing system set to measure statistical results. We all know tests are necessary to measure a student’s progress, but to put complete and utter emphasis on results alone is wrong.

I don’t think that school vouchers are the answer to this problem; this is the slippery slope that leads to privatization. I also don’t think bussing children to better schools in well to do areas is the solution either. We must fix our public education system in this state and in this country. My uncle worked hard while living in the Bronx to send his kids to private parochial schools and kept them out of the public schools, but why must that be so?

Part of the solution can be possibly found in creating smaller schools which give the administrators, teaching staff and students more of an environment that fosters learning. Everyone gets to know each other and it’s less impersonal and crowded. For years I’ve always heard of the benefits of smaller class sizes. I also think part of the solution can be found in what the Campaign for Fiscal Equity has been trying to do.

Back in 1993, the CFE filed a lawsuit that claimed the state’ school finance system under funded NYC public schools. This denied students their right to a sound basic education. In 2003, the NY Court of Appeals in a 4-1 decision found in favor of the CFE. This means that students throughout the state of New York have the right to a sound basic education and schools throughout the state should be equally funded. Currently the state has been in non compliance with the ruling. A few days ago the CFE went back to the Court of Appeals to ask that their ruling be enforced.

It is the countless parents and groups like the Campaign for Fiscal Equity that will be the ones who put an end to the shame of our nation. All hope is not lost, but we must also address the underlying problem that attributes to all of this. That problem is poverty and the ever shrinking middle-class. We must find the tide that will lift all boats.