Savage Inequalities

The next chapter directly illustrates the inequality in education, comparing an affluent neighborhood and an impoverished one. The affluent neighborhood is Winnetka, north of Chicago; the impoverished neighborhood is North Lawndale, west on the Eisenhower Expressway. North Lawndale is an impoverished community, whose economic isolation has been worsening steadily in recent decades. Once the headquarters of Sears Roebuck, crime has been steadily on the rise. The narrative centers on Mary McLeod Bethune School in North Lawndale. Kozol writes that twelve years from now, fourteen of the twenty-three children will drop out of school, and only one will go to college. Many of the students, all of them black, are classified as "learning disabled." The teacher of this classroom describes the system as a game, in which the students pass from one grade to the next without any real advancement. The problem, he says, is the system of school selection known as "magnet schools."

Magnet schools, Kozol writes, are a system by which parents may opt to send their children to higher-performing schools. This however, drains resources from already-distressed schools, further damaging their prospects. Kozol argues that this system of school choice creates a situation that compounds the economic isolation these schools already face.