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.
