MORE APARTHEID NATION

Abandoned. See my earlier thoughts on the incorrigible. APARTHEID NATION.

"Kozol visited my classroom one afternoon and had the following conversation with my students, which is related in his book:

Mireya suddenly began to cry. “I don’t want to take hairdressing. I didn’t need sewing, either. I know how to sew. My mother is a seamstress in a factory. I’m trying to go to college. I don’t need to sew to go to college. My mother sews. I hoped for something else.”

“What would you rather take?” I asked. “I wanted to take an AP class,” she answered.

Mireya’s sudden tears elicited a strong reaction from one of the boys who had been silent up to now. A thin and dark-eyed student, named Fortino, with long hair down to his shoulders who was sitting on the left side of the classroom, he turned to Mireya.

“Listen to me,” he said. “The owners of the sewing factories need laborers. Correct?” “I guess they do,” Mireya said. “It’s not going to be their own kids, right?” “Why not?” another student asked. “So they can grow beyond themselves,” Mireya answered quietly. “But we remain the same.”

“You’re ghetto,” said Fortino, “so we send you to the factory.”

These conversations with children and educators contain more truth than all the combined studies of the Department of Education." ... Separate and Unequal: The Resegregation of America’s Public Schools Read more.