In this chapter of Jonathon's Kozol's novel Savage Inequalities, he focuses on the opposing side to his argument. His argument is America's schools are not equal and therefore America is depriving its children of their rights to equal opportunity. Kozol addresses the counterargument, "Much of the resistance, it appears, derives from a conservative anxiety that equity equates to 'leveling.' The fear that comes across is that democratizing opportunity will undermine diversity and even elegance in our society and that the best schools will be dragged down to a sullen norm, a mediocre middle ground of uniformity." When I shared this with my dad, he agreed with this argument. He said not only in education, but in health care too. He believes if the government got involved in equalizing health care for everyone then the quality of it might decrease. Maybe for people like my family and me who are privileged to the best health care it would go down a little. But how can the quality of health care decrease to the majority of people who have no health care at all? The way I see it is for them any kind of health care is automatically an increase from their no health care. This idea applies to schools as well. So people like me might have to give up their extraordinary education to a normal education so that so many other people without an adequate education can also get a normal education. Does this sound so bad? Are we that selfish that we only see this idea of equal education as "leveling down" because for us there would be a decrease in quality. Of course no one looks at the "leveling up" for so many more people as a reason to go through with it. Instead, it's all about ourselves. I have to wonder if having a mediocre education would be that bad. If I maintain my values, I will still get good grades in school and go on to college. So I don't go to Harvard, big deal. Is it really that bad? Should I measure the success of my life by being the best at everything? Do I need the best education? Or realistically can I have a good life with a pretty good education, even if it's not "the best"? The way I see it is that other people need help, and people like me have the opportunity to help them. Like everything else in life, it takes sacrifices. I see it as an obligation. I don't expect everyone to see it as an obligation, after all they've worked hard and made sacrifices so their kids can have this splendid education. The people who don't see it as an obligation, I hope they would do it because they want to, not because they're obligated to. After all, they know best how important education is because of the sacrifices they've made for their own children's education. Do they not want this for all children?
The people opposing the equalization of the public schools do not see the irony in their argument. They spend a lot of money on lawyers and the services of experts to say that money is not the real issue. Kozol writes, "Do they really ask us to believe that laws of economics, which control all other aspects of our lives in this society, somehow cease to function at the school-house door?" The other side argues money is not important in bringing up the quality of education in many schools. If money is not what's important, then they should have no problem giving up some of their money to the other schools. Those with money and a good education cannot logically expect poor people without an adequate education to believe them when they say money isn't important.
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