Protecting the Wealthy, Attacking the Poor

            An example of how poorly funded education protects the rich is the lack of action to help the poor. Many ghetto schools described in Jonathan Kozol’s book, Savage Inequalities, lack the basic supplies needed to run a school, and he asserts that “If they had given Head Start to our children and pre-kindergarten, and materials, and classes of 15 or 18 children in elementary grades, and computers, and attractive buildings, and enough books and supplies, and teacher salaries sufficient to compete with suburban schools…then it might have been fair play” (173). A primary problem with this lack of basic supplies is that it puts ghetto students behind their suburban counterparts because they are expected to conform to modern educational standards using yesterday’s equipment. But the greater concern is the lack of money to attract new and more competitive teachers. Without a renewed investment in teachers, tenured and less motivated teachers are all that the school can afford, while better teachers are pulled away to better and higher paying jobs which contributes to growing class sizes and a less efficient learning environment.

            Another example of how low educational funding can help the wealthy is that less educated ghetto students provide less competition to suburban students in jobs and college. In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol explores society’s expectations of ghetto children when a businessman says, “No one expects these ghetto kids to go to college. Most of them are lucky if they’re even literate. If we can teach some useful skills, get them to stay in school and graduate, and maybe into jobs, we’re giving them the best that they can hope for” (93). In the eyes of business, society, and education, students from the ghetto are not the equals of suburban students and should not even be given the opportunity to rise above their class. In this reasoning, the “good” suburban students are meant for college and high paying careers, while the “bad” ghetto students are destined for bottom level jobs, clearing the playing field for upper class students. By separating students and creating such insurmountable inequalities, the wealthy have created an educational barrier that will help safeguard their class for years to come.

            Education has traditionally been the great equalizer of the classes, and as a result, has been suppressed and neglected by stratified societies. Throughout Savage Inequalities, many poor school officials argue that with the adequate funding and reformation, students from the ghetto have a chance of competing with their suburban counterparts. Through quality education, students regardless of color have a better chance of attending college and obtaining careers that can pull them up from the ghetto to a higher station in life. In addition, quality education can teach the working poor to fully recognize the injustices that they suffer and change it for the betterment of themselves and their class. Education for the working class is essential for a more equal society, and as a result, jeopardizes the wealthy class who will do all in their power to suppress it.

            Those most affected by poorly funded public schools is obviously the poor students from the ghettos. In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol highlights the differences between suburban and inner city curriculums when he observes, “Many urban high school students do not study math, but ‘business math’- essentially a very elemental level of book-keeping. Job specific courses such as ‘cosmetology’ (hairdressing, manicures), which would be viewed as insults by suburban parents, are a common item in the segregated high schools and are seen as a realistic preparation for the adult roles that   16-year-old black girls may expect to fill” (92). Many ghetto schools across the nation exist not as institutions of upward mobility and learning, but as training centers for bottom level positions at best, and dropout factories at worst. In these schools, rather than teaching the students to take charge of their lives and aspire to greater goals, they determine the students’ social and economic roles and enforce it with little room for compromise.

            Another group that is seriously affected by poorly funded public schools is the working class as a whole. Historically shackles and walls divided the working class and the ruling class, but today, they are separated by education and the lack thereof. In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol examines the separation of the suburban students and the inner city students when he writes that, “[Suburban parents] see the poorer children as a tide of mediocrity that threatens to engulf them. They are prepared to see those children get their schooling in a metal prefab in a junkyard rather than admit them to the beautiful new school erected for their own kids” (75). By separating students and segregating them into greatly inferior schools, society is taking great pains to keep the poor in the ghetto while coveting quality education for themselves. This act of selfishness and class warfare helps build a wall to defend the lifestyle of the wealthy from the ghettos of the poor.

            In the battle for quality education for the poor, the rich also have a stake in the fight. In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol records an incident when a student recalls her treatment in a white neighborhood and she relates the following, “Fairview Heights is a mainly white community. A friend of mine and I went up there once to buy some books. We walked into the store. Everybody lookin’ at us, you know, and somebody says, ‘What do you want?’…Its like they’re scared we’re going to rob them. Take away a privilege that’s theirs by rights” (38). Contrary to many beliefs, the rich do not deny education to others out of spite, but out of a deep-seated fear that their place in society will be threatened if the poor stand on equal ground. Every hurdle that has been thrown towards improving poor public education helps to ensure the comparatively superior performance of wealthier schools, and every ghetto student that fails in the ghetto schools represents one less competitor in the college and job market. 

            If big business and the wealthy continue to have a hand in public education, the citizens produced will be simple commodities in a heartless capitalist machine. In Jonathan Kozol’s book, Savage Inequalities, he captures the views of the corporations when a Chicago businessman confides, “Besides…these bottom-level jobs exist. They need to be done. Someone’s got to do them” (93). It is no secret that the sole purpose of a business is to make money, and that people, no matter what, are simply assets. By denying quality education to poor public schools, businesses are making an investment in the potential labor force that they can squeeze from the student population. By keeping and training poor students to be future bottom level workers, they have effectively made a system that produces cheap workers that are endless in supply.

            A society that allows businesses to influence and educate their students is a society that will place profits over the people’s welfare. In Jonathan Kozol’s book, Savage Inequalities, he describes the money saving strategies of the plants surrounding East St. Louis, “When the plant gives off emissions that are viewed as toxic, an alarm goes off. People who have breathed the smoke are given a cash payment of $400 in exchange for a release from liability” (19). In many areas in the country, the ideals of “might makes right” and “survival of the fittest” have created a society that considers any means to prosperity acceptable. This has led to the exploitation of poor communities who cannot resist or regulate these powerful corporations.

            Should the corporations exercise control over public schools, we can expect many of their decisions to place money before the public good. Jonathan Kozol describes the unbridled power of corporations in Camden when he writes that, “The major industries, apart from RCA and Campbell’s are a trash incinerator, and a sewage treatment plant (neither of which pay taxes to the city), scrapyards (there are ten of them) and two new prisons… 55 million gallons of the county’s sewage comes into Camden every day… [And] the incinerator tower… will add its smoke to air already fouled by the smell of sewage” (179). In many poor colored communities, the populations are generally seen as expendable people, and have their communities poisoned by industrial waste with little to no public outcry. By the corporation’s worldview, the profits that their operations generate from these communities far outweigh the ecological and social problems that they impose on the people.