For two years, beginning in 1988, Jonathan Kozol visited schools in
neighborhoods across the country, from Illinois to Washington D.C., and
from New York to San Antonio. He spoke with teachers, principals,
superintendents, and, most important, children. What he found was
devastating. Not only were schools for rich and poor blatantly unequal,
the gulf between the two extremes was widening--and it has widened
since. The urban schools he visited were overcrowded and understaffed,
and lacked the basic elements of learning--including books and, all too
often, classrooms for the students.
In Savage Inequalities, Kozol delivers a searing examination of the
extremes of wealth and poverty and calls into question the reality of
equal opportunity in our nation's schools.