WSJ Book Review: Lessons Not Learned - "The Shame of the Nation" By Jonathan Kozol

Wall Street Journal ^ | September 29, 2005 | ABIGAIL THERNSTROM

[OESY]

Jonathan Kozol has a devoted following, and "The Shame of the Nation" will not disappoint his fans. It's vintage Kozol -- a jeremiad. His core complaints are familiar: American public schools are segregated, and those that have few whites in them are financially starved. He adds only one new element: The standards, testing and accountability "juggernaut" has crushed the "humane and happy" education we once had....

"The Shame of the Nation" is basically an updated version of Mr. Kozol's 1991 book, "Savage Inequalities."... To be sure, Mr. Kozol has a seductive formula: Ignore most social scientists, listen to the children themselves and react with deep moral outrage to the tales of deprivation they tell. The most reliable evidence as to what actually goes on in schools, he writes, does not come from experts but from children, who are "pure witnesses."...

Mr. Kozol pays such scant attention to academic achievement that it's unclear. He is against longer school days, summer school for kids who need it, charter schools (and other forms of choice), merit pay and every promising avenue of school reform. He does, as an aside, acknowledge that kids should learn "essential skills," but his main concern is with schools that exude "warmth and playfulness and informality and cheerful camaraderie among the teachers and their children."...

Instead of undertaking an analysis that looks at the facts and grapples with the hard reality of dysfunctional families, disruptive kids, undereducated teachers, stifling union contracts and a host of other ills, Mr. Kozol talks dreamily of a new protest movement led by parents and teachers who have nothing to lose but their chains. As Lincoln once famously said about a book: "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."

[OESY]

Ms. Thernstrom is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the co-author, with Stephan Thernstrom, of "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning."

'Segregation' and 'apartheid' run like a mantra through this book on public education today.

THE SHAME OF THE NATION, By Jonathan Kozol, (Crown, 404 pages, $25)

[dynachrome]

Gee, I'll bet he is foursquare for school vouchers. Not.

[Enchante]

The shame of our nation is that leftist lunatic fanatics from Kozol to Ronnie Earle to Cindy Sheehan to moveon.org, etc. etc. can get taken seriously at all. These lying vicious propagandists need to be exposed and discredited once and for all....

[Rodney King]

There is a better review of this book at National Review online today.