Essay on the Book Savage Inequalities

Xavier Whitacre
Professor, Dr. Piliawsky
EHP 3600
02 June, 2003
Throughout my life, I have tended to view myself as conservative and believed strongly in state?s rights as well as strong local control with respect to governmental policies, particularly in education expenditures. Jonathan Kozol?s book, Savage Inequalities addresses this topic of governmental control over education with a compassion and enthusiasm that has my personal political views in a quandary. The major theme of this book appears to be the role of government with respect to educational funding and performance. Kozol disapproves of the current funding of public education through local personal property taxes and advocates a national tax strategy that would level the playing field for all children of America. Kozol focuses on the inequality of school funding, performance, and segregation. Throughout his book, he cites many powerful examples of these inequalities, but does not offer solutions to them. ...