We Can Do Better Than This, America!

In all honesty I'm a little infuriated right now. I'm reading Jonathan Kozol's book Savage Inequalities for my School and Society class and although the book was written in 1990 and some pretty outdated numbers and statistics, the underlying problem Kozol talks about is so unbelievably, tragically, relevant today that it makes me sad. Kozol writes about his visits to some of the country's crappiest schools. What I get from his book is that this country should be humiliated at how we treat our poorest citizens. I also recently watched the movie Sicko. All feelings toward Michael Moore aside, the movie makes you think. While other countries allow their citizens to enjoy free health care we let the rich buy the best their money can buy and let the poor suffer and die. The school system is the same. One difference is that the education system is, in theory, free for every citizen. The problem is that just like health care the rich go around buying their ridiculously high-quality medical care and education while the poor have to suffer with the lowest of the low "leftovers" and the elite say to them "well hey you ARE getting it for free...don't you love your freedom?" What good is a free education if it leaves you worlds behind academically, financially, and in every other way?

I can't imagine the education or health care system will ever fall into a utopian "free and good quality for all" because there seems to be a mindset among those who have the wealth that they have lots of money and that ought to buy them something better than those who don't have as much money. Otherwise what's the point in having all this money if it doesn't do something good for you? From a structural functional point of view this is true. In order for some people to have cushy fanciful lives, someone else has to suffer through a life of mediocrity. If we all received the same health care, education, life chances no one would be motivated to do better, right? Maybe, but in the meantime the difference in quality of life in this wonderful country full of freedom and opportunity between the rich and the poor is literally as big as it has ever been. Even if some people get a better education than others (this seems inevitable) shouldn't those getting the short end of the stick at the very least get an adequate education? Shouldn't a sick person at least get immediate medical attention before we ask how or if they can pay for it?





" 'You can have more crayons; or you can be given a real teacher; or you can have a bunsen burner someday in a high school science laboratory. But you cannot have all three. You'll have to choose.' One would never have thought that children in America would ever have to choose between a teacher or a playground or sufficient toilet paper. Like grain in a time of famine, the immense resources which the nation does in fact possess go not to the child in the greatest need but to the child of the highest bidder" -Jonathan Kozol