Kozol has been a longtime chronicler of inequalities in American education. Back in 1968, as a brand-new teacher, he published “Death at an Early Age,” an account of the terrible conditions in an impoverished African-American school in Boston. His latest book, “Letters to a Young Teacher,” was published in September. NEWSWEEK’s Peg Tyre recently spoke with Kozol. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: What is a partial fast? Jonathan Kozol: I take mostly liquids, but because of certain medical conditions, my doctor insists I take some solid nourishment. So far I’ve lost 29 pounds.
Don’t you think that a partial fast is a little extreme? I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t believe that No Child Left Behind is driving a deep wedge between the races.
What do you hope to accomplish? I’m determined to convince the Democratic leadership not to genuflect in front of a racist and overly punitive education law that Republicans have foisted on our public schools. So far, I’ve spoken to almost all key Democratic senators [on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee] and presented a number of specific proposals [to change and improve the law]. Sen. [Edward M.] Kennedy, the chairman of the committee—who I have known for 40 years, who I like tremendously, who I went away with on weekend retreats before this bill was debated the first time around … now, he refuses to even return my calls.
So you are fasting until Senator Kennedy returns your call? I think he made a very bad mistake when he agreed to cosponsor this bill. I think he will be resistant to the sweeping changes I’m proposing. But as a lifelong Democrat, I don’t believe I should let the people I trust off the hook. It’s very hard to challenge a man I admire so very much.
What is your problem with the law as it is written? Black and Hispanic children are being handed a stripped-down, debased curriculum. They are being trained to provide predictable answers and that provides a terrible danger for a democratic society. Principals, so terrified of No Child Left Behind and determined to pump up the scores, are restricting students’ learning to mechanistic skills in a narrow range of subjects. This does not equate to learning. And we see that. For all the obsessive drilling, any gains that supporters of No Child Left Behind claim are there are not being sustained. These children can’t write a single cogent sentence. No Child Left Behind means that black and Hispanic children are driven by a terrible anxiety, a fear of failure instead of the natural curiosity of humans to learn.
So you believe that 20 years ago, before the start of the accountability movement and No Child Left Behind, the kind of education poor children were getting in this country was being driven by their “natural curiosity”? According to the Department of Education numbers I’ve seen, back then, as now, poor black and Latino kids do very poorly in school compared to white middle-class ones. I’m not saying that things are worse than when I started teaching. Besides, the White House has always been good at finding statistics to substantiate their point of view. Let me tell you, white parents who send their kids to middle-class public schools wouldn’t put up with this kind of education for their own kids that black and Hispanic kids are getting.
And you think that’s a product of No Child Left Behind? We’ve never had such a stark and specific line between races.
One of your proposed changes is to reduce our reliance on testing. What do you think would be an effective measure of a school’s success? In the long run what matters most in the quality of any school is not the test or the “adequate yearly progress” [a NCLB designation], it is not the level of anxiety those tests create. It is the high morale of teachers, the stability of the faculty and the number of children that teacher serves every day. Good schools also depend on all students having access to quality preschool.
Do you feel you are speaking out on behalf of poor black kids? It sounds arrogant when you put it that way. I’m speaking out of my own heart after watching the shifting trends in public education. I am doing what I need to do to keep faith with an awful lot of black and Hispanic people who have trusted me. And I’m also speaking on behalf of thousands of teachers–good teachers–who tell me they are being asked to do things they abhor.
What is your response to the civil-rights groups, the minority-rights groups and the left-leaning think tanks who support No Child Left Behind? It’s inevitable. There have always been divisions within civil-rights groups. I didn’t put my finger in the wind to see what is popular. I’m talking as a man who has spent my entire life visiting classrooms, watching what is going on.
