Report on "Children in America's Schools", a documentary movie based on a book by Jonathan Kozol called "Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools".
Report on "Children in America's Schools", a documentary movie based on a book by Jonathan Kozol called "Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools".
"Children in America's Schools" is a documentary movie based on the Jonathan Kozol book "Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools" and looks at the school system in America circa 1996. The movie describes the disparate quality of education that exists between poor and rich school districts in the United States. Entering schools in an economically disenfranchised city in New Jersey, the narrator describes buildings, faculties, curricula, and school boards that are all but falling apart. School overcrowding forces some classes into bathrooms in these schools; lacking funds make it impossible to teach science labs or have textbooks for students to take home; in other cases you see water on the floors and pouring through stairwells because there is just not enough money in the budget to fix the plumbing. Meanwhile, at an affluent suburban school in Colorado, students enjoy the luxuries of campuses that feature newly remodeled auditoriums, student lounges, wood-paneled libraries brimming with books, extensive computer laboratories, and excellent teachers whose average salaries must be very high. In these schools, students have a much broader range of classes / activities to choose from. The inequities are apparent to see; the opportunities afforded the children in these separate and unequal school sites as different as day and night.
It becomes obvious that many poor children begin their young lives with an education that is far inferior to that of the children who grow up in wealthier communities. They are not given an equal opportunity from the start. Although all children are required to attend school until age 16, there are major differences in schools and they appear to be drawn along lines of race and social class. Locally here in California it was found that there was only a 1.5% dropout rate in
"Children in America's Schools" is a documentary movie based on the Jonathan Kozol book "Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools" and looks at the school system in America circa 1996. The movie describes the disparate quality of education that exists between poor and rich school districts in the United States. Entering schools in an economically disenfranchised city in New Jersey, the narrator describes buildings, faculties, curricula, and school boards that are all but falling apart. School overcrowding forces some classes into bathrooms in these schools; lacking funds make it impossible to teach science labs or have textbooks for students to take home; in other cases you see water on the floors and pouring through stairwells because there is just not enough money in the budget to fix the plumbing. Meanwhile, at an affluent suburban school in Colorado, students enjoy the luxuries of campuses that feature newly remodeled auditoriums, student lounges, wood-paneled libraries brimming with books, extensive computer laboratories, and excellent teachers whose average salaries must be very high. In these schools, students have a much broader range of classes / activities to choose from. The inequities are apparent to see; the opportunities afforded the children in these separate and unequal school sites as different as day and night.
It becomes obvious that many poor children begin their young lives with an education that is far inferior to that of the children who grow up in wealthier communities. They are not given an equal opportunity from the start. Although all children are required to attend school until age 16, there are major differences in schools and they appear to be drawn along lines of race and social class. Locally here in California it was found that there was only a 1.5% dropout rate in