Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools

For those of you who grew up like me, you probably have never really thought about the injustices in the public school system because they don't apply to you. However, you probably have noticed that schools in nicer neighborhoods are typically better than those in worse neighborhoods. It's time to think beyond just that fact and find the consequences of public school systems based on property taxes. You are born into a class. The children born into nicer neighborhoods get access to the best schools, find it easier to get into a college, and have a variety of job choices available to them. This knowledge has motivated me to work hard in school. Knowing what the finish line looks like gives me an incentive to show up to class and work hard. Since there are a variety of colleges within my reach and an endless amount of career choices to pick from at these colleges, I have been motivated to not only show up to school, but to work hard too. How hard I study is a reflection of what I know the reward will be. People who don't succeed are not necessarily born lazier than me. When their schools do not promise a successful future for them, they have no reason to show up and try hard. If my school did not have the right teachers or supplies to provide an adequate opportunity to get me farther in life, what would the point be in showing up or trying? If dropping out of school and working minimum wage jobs is the only known way of providing food and shelter, then why would I choose to go to a school where nothing is promised instead?
In the last chapter of Jonathan Kozol's novel Savage Inequalities, Kozol takes the reader into the towns of Alamo Heights and Cassiano, both in the city of San Antonio. The two towns are just seven minutes away from one another. To the children in Cassiano, Alamo Heights seems an impossible distance away. My past four blogs on previous chapters in this novel explain the inequalities. Something new struck me in this last chapter. A social worker from one of the schools in Cassiano explains the future of many of the children. She says, "Many of these teen-age girls helping their mothers to make supper will be pregnant soon. They will have children and leave school. Many will then begin the daily trip to Alamo Heights. They'll do domestic work and bring up other people's kids. By the time they know what they were missing, it's too late."
The last sentence in this quote is what generated my thoughts and questions at the end of the first paragraph. Society likes to look at the poor and unsuccessful and blame it on laziness. However it is unjust to compare the amount of school work done by the children in Alamo Heights to the children in Cassiano without comparing the history and more importantly the environments. The human brain works on a reward system. Every behavior we do is a result of reinforcement or punishment. To children in Alamo Heights, they know they will be rewarded with college, a job, and a substantial income, if they attend school. To the children in Cassiano, their school provides no promise of any of these things. Instead, when they drop out of school and work minimum wage jobs they are rewarded with minimum wage, the only known way to provide food and shelter. The powerful words, "By the time they know what they were missing, it's too late," say it all. The children from Cassiano are not exposed to a decent education until they work for families in Alamo Heights and see the schools over there. They do not understand the importance of education until they see how a good education can give someone a entirely new future. Now that they are exposed to good education and what good it does, "it's too late". Then they go back to Cassiano and learn even more. They learn their children are not equally worthy as the Alamo Heights children in receiving an education. They learn their place in the world is somewhere along the lines of housekeeping. This was predetermined for them from the second they were born into a Cassiano family.
This novel has opened up my eyes to injustices, the simple unequal education between the rich and the poor. This novel has made me understand others. Instead of judging and labeling others as lazy or chastising those who don't attend school, I now understand the problem is much bigger than the individuals choice to attend school or not. It's a problem the entire public system is to blame for. It's not just districts with the high dropout rate's problem, but schools like mine with the high graduation rate's problem as well. The most important thing I got out of this novel was a gratefulness for my education. I've learned not to take my education for granted, because not everyone has it in this "democratic" country. Above I mentioned it's everyone's problem. I was given a good education, and there's no need to feel guilty for what I have. Just as the children in Cassiano did not choose to be born into that town, I did not choose to be born into mine. But I do have control over how I use what I've inherited. I will take advantage of the education given to me, and use it to help others less fortunate than me. Kozol might have showed me the injustices in the the public school system and the injustices placed upon America's children, but the message I got was that it doesn't have to stay like that.