By Pepper of the Daily Pepper
Like Neil, I'd like to consider focusing more on individuals in the schools. In Newsweek's remembrance of Rosa Parks, Ellis Cose writes,
In the newly published "The Shame of the Nation," Jonathan Kozol sheds a book's length of tears over segregation in schools. He cites research that shows segregation is worsening and notes that three fourths of black and Latino children attend schools with no or relatively few whites. It is a daunting task to convince poor, minority kids they can learn "when they are cordoned off by a society that isn't sure they really can," writes Kozol.
Ezra has covered this topic before, but the questions are worth asking again and again. Is this what the civil-rights movement was for? Fighting against segregation just so it can happen again? It is hard to find opportunity in public schools, harder than ever. The wealthier and whiter families are in the suburbs, where their property taxes go to fund nicer schools.
