Summary Of Jonathon Kozol's Shame Of The Nation

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Education reform writer Jonathon Kozol in Shame of the Nation exemplifies the extreme amount of inequality between different socioeconomic and racial groups in education. Kozol highlights that African-American and Hispanic students receive limited resources and are often patronized by a belittling curriculum. His passion lies in showcasing the struggles of the disadvantaged students in underprivileged communities; through anecdotes and interviews he recounts the poor conditions of different schools in comparison to white suburban districts (Kozol, 2005). Kozol would be skeptical, yet accepting of The Cleveland Plan because the intentions of the education initiative aligns with portions of his reform philosophies; however, he would not concur with the methods of how the students’ performance are measured. Kozol is a proponent of teachers dedicated to learning rather than their ability to make students pass an assessment. Since students’ performance are evaluated by their assessments, Kozol’s philosophy rejects the notion that a student’s education is measured by a performance plan that is heavily reliant on test performances. There are a few inconsistencies with Kozol’s philosophy and The Cleveland …show more content…

She witnessed several cases in Newark where some kids could not do the basics required for proficiency in any subject (Russakoff, 2015). Although the intention of providing new charter schools is to improve students’ education, students from underprivileged schools may not adjust with these fixed curriculum and performance measures. Consequently, Russakoff would imply that students from failing schools will not be prepared to fulfill the performance demanded by The Cleveland Plan because of their previous school’s