Savage Inequalities: Public Education in New York

"Public Education in New York" is the third chapter in the eye opening novel Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol. The brilliance in Kozol's writing is shown by how he opens up this chapter. It's a quote from Lord Acton from roughly 130 years ago on the United States.
"In a country where there is no distinction of class, a child is not born to the station of its parents, but with an indefinate claim to all the prizes that can be won by thought and labor. Americans are unwilling that any should be deprived in childhood of the means of competition."
The last sentence really struck me. If you don't see its connection to our public school system then hopefully this blog will help you see it. I agree with the philosophy behind this quote. No one "in childhood" "should be deprived of the means of competition". Well if the way to "all the prizes" is through "thought and labor" then every child should have the "means of competition". Instead of reorganizing the quote I'll put it into my own terms. No child should be deprived of access to an education because in our society its supposed to be our way to success. We aren't what we were born into, but what we make of ourselves. We're not supposed to be a result of our parents money, but of our hard work. There is a big difference between this quote from 130 years ago, and our society today.
Here's one of Kozol's many examples. "In a class of 22, there are two black children and three Asian. There is a sink and a computer... Walking next into a special class, I see twelve children. One is white. Eleven are black. The room is half the size. There is no computer and no sink." This emphasizes that Americans in today's society are not unwilling to deprive children of the means of competition. The mostly black class is not given the same advantages as the mostly white class. They do not have any of the means to put themselves in a position to strive for "all the prizes" or success in general. A student in the gifted program at the school knows she is not just smarter than the other kids because she was born that way. She says, "We know certain things that other kids don't know because we're taught them." She is simply stating that she was given access to these means of competition by having the ability to learn certain things. Other students' disadvantages are not a result of themselves, but of the fact that they were never taught the same things other students in gifted programs were. They were not given the same means of competition and they can ever be a part of the same race. They are at a disadvantage in becoming successful, unlike the students in the gifted program who are taught more things and handed success. This does not sound like the America Lord Acton wrote so fondly about.