WW #1 - We Ignore Them

Reading: Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
Pages: 3-34

This is a description of East St. Louis, where sewage and chemical spills are a regular occurance. Since folk don't have the means to dispose of their garbage, they often simply burn it on their front lawn, resulting in a terrible odor. Kozol not only does a good job in setting the scene in these passages, but he makes an interesting point throughtout: environment plays a large role in development. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act ("No Child Left Behind" [NCLB]) is a good *idea*, but a child born in a place like East St. Louis is already behind a child born in Beverly Hills or even San Jose. In this country, how do we treat cases of inequity in living conditions, income, or education? It seems to me we ignore them. So do we hold the students that are living in squalor, or in low-income housing, or in families that are poorly educated to the same standards as the students that are living in masions, or even in median housing, or with parents who are well educated? Sure, we want to have a bare minimum that students can achieve at and that sounds fair. But when for some kids that means an increase so high above their environment as to seem impossible, that puts them at a disadvantage compared to a kid for whom that increase is not very high above their surroundings. But, then, do we expect less of a student who is the product of poor environment, thereby condeming that student to likely live in that poor environment for the rest of his life? A student with poor education isn't likely to "get out" of that bad town or that poor lifestyle. So what do we do?