"The nation needs to be confronted with the crime that we're committing and the promises we are betraying. This is a book about betrayal of the young, who have no power to defend themselves. It is not intended to make readers comfortable."

Over the past several years, Jonathan Kozol has visited nearly 60 public schools. Virtually everywhere, he finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, a state of nearly absolute apartheid now prevails in thousands of our schools. The segregation of black children has reverted to a level that the nation has not seen since 1968. Few of the students in these schools know white children any longer. Second, a protomilitary form of discipline has now emerged, modeled on stick-and-carrot methods of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons but targeted exclusively at black and Hispanic children. And third, as high-stakes testing takes on pathological and punitive dimensions, liberal education in our inner-city schools has been increasingly replaced by culturally barren and robotic methods of instruction that would be rejected out of hand by schools that serve the mainstream of society.

Filled with the passionate voices of children and their teachers and some of the most revered and trusted leaders in the black community, The Shame of the Nation is a triumph of firsthand reporting that pays tribute to those undefeated educators who persist against the odds, but directly challenges the chilling practices now being forced upon our urban systems by the Bush administration. In their place, Kozol offers a humane, dramatic challenge to our nation to fulfill at last the promise made some 50 years ago to all our youngest citizens.

"Public school resegregation is a 'national horror hidden in plain view,' writes former educator turned public education activist Kozol (Savage Inequalities, Amazing Grace). Kozol visited 60 schools in 11 states over a five-year period and finds, despite the promise of Brown v. Board of Education, many schools serving black and Hispanic children are spiraling backward to the pre-Brown era. These schools lack the basics: clean classrooms, hallways and restrooms; up-to-date books in good condition; and appropriate laboratory supplies. Teachers and administrators eschew creative coursework for rote learning to meet testing and accountability mandates, thereby 'embracing a pedagogy of direct command and absolute control' usually found in 'penal institutions and drug rehabilitation programs.' As always, Kozol presents sharp and poignant portraits of the indignities vulnerable individuals endure. 'You have all the things and we do not have all the things,' one eight-year-old Bronx boy wrote the author. In another revealing exchange, a cynical high school student tells his classmate, a young woman with college ambitions who was forced into hair braiding and sewing classes, 'You're ghetto-so you sew.' Kozol discovers widespread acceptance for the notion that 'schools in ghettoized communities must settle for a different set of academic and career goals' than schools serving middle-and upper-class children. Kozol tempers this gloom with hopeful interactions between energetic teachers and receptive children in schools where all is not lost. But these 'treasured places' don't hide the fact, Kozol argues, that school segregation is still the rule for poor minorities, or that Kozol, and the like-minded politicians, educators and advocates he seeks out, believe a new civil rights movement will be necessary to eradicate it. " Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The author of Savage Inequalities argues that US schools are now more segregated than when the Supreme Court made its landmark Brown v. Board of Education desegregation ruling (1954). This veteran activist researcher traces the roots of the problem, faults efficiency models such as the No Child Left Behind Act, and supports a constitutional amendment making education a fundamental right. This provocative treatment finds a glimmer of hope in a district's rejection of quick-fix remedial programs.
Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The author of Savage Inequalities argues that US schools are now more segregated than when the Supreme Court made its landmark Brown v. Board of Education desegregation ruling (1954). This veteran activist researcher traces the roots of the problem, faults efficiency models such as the No Child Left Behind Act, and supports a constitutional amendment making education a fundamental right. This provocative treatment finds a glimmer of hope in a district's rejection of quick-fix remedial programs. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"[A] masterful overview of the public school system....Readers interested in public education will appreciate — and be challenged by — this compelling book." Booklist

"Kozol's book is light on statistics, but he deploys them with great effectiveness....After reading The Shame of the Nation, it is impossible not to share his outrage." Chicago Tribune

"Jonathan's struggle is noble. What he says must be heard. His outcry must shake our nation out of its guilty indifference." Elie Wiesel

"Among the many virtues of Jonathan Kozol's strong and often beautiful books is that we cannot forget for even an instant that the poor are of our kind and live but a moment away....There must be something special about Kozol — a warmth, a gentleness, a kind of mournful decency — that brings out the extraordinary in others." Kai Erikson, The Nation

"[T]he outrage leaps from almost every page. It's polite, it's articulate, but outrage leaps nonetheless." San Diego Union-Tribune

"Today's most eloquent spokesman for America's disenfranchised." Chicago Sun-Times

After visiting nearly 60 public schools, the author discovers that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 20 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

“The nation needs to be confronted with the crime that we’re committing and the promises we are betraying. This is a book about betrayal of the young, who have no power to defend themselves. It is not intended to make readers comfortable.”

Over the past several years, Jonathan Kozol has visited nearly 60 public schools. Virtually everywhere, he finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, a state of nearly absolute apartheid now prevails in thousands of our schools. The segregation of black children has reverted to a level that the nation has not seen since 1968. Few of the students in these schools know white children any longer. Second, a protomilitary form of discipline has now emerged, modeled on stick-and-carrot methods of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons but targeted exclusively at black and Hispanic children. And third, as high-stakes testing takes on pathological and punitive dimensions, liberal education in our inner-city schools has been increasingly replaced by culturally barren and robotic methods of instruction that would be rejected out of hand by schools that serve the mainstream of society.

Filled with the passionate voices of children and their teachers and some of the most revered and trusted leaders in the black community, The Shame of the Nation is a triumph of firsthand reporting that pays tribute to those undefeated educators who persist against the odds, but directly challenges the chilling practices now being forced upon our urban systems by the Bush administration. In their place, Kozol offers a humane, dramatic challenge to our nation to fulfill at last the promise made some 50 years ago to all our youngest citizens.

From The Shame of the Nation

“I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations,” the president said in his campaign for reelection in September 2004. “It’s working. It’s making a difference.” It is one of those deadly lies, which, by sheer repetition, is at length accepted by large numbers of Americans as, perhaps, a rough approximation of the truth. But it is not the truth, and it is not an innocent misstatement of the facts. It is a devious appeasement of the heartache of the parents of the poor and, if it is not forcefully resisted and denounced, it is going to lead our nation even further in a perilous direction.

Also available as a Random House AudioBook and an eBook

Jonathan Kozol is the National Book Award-winning author of Death at an Early Age, Savage Inequalities, and Amazing Grace. He has been working with children in inner-city schools for more than 40 years.