FINN READING ASSIGNMENT - CONNECTION TO KOZOL'S 6/7/10 POST

Patrick J. Finn, selected chapters from the book Literacy with an Attitude

Chapter 1 begins with a reference to Jonathan Kozol's book entitled Savage Inequalities, in which Kozol traces the unequal system of education between rich and poor to racial segregation and unequal school funding. Finn agrees with Kozol, but he concentrates on those sources of inequality that are, unlike segregation and lack of funding, very subtle and under the radar of the average parent and student - social class.

In chapter 2 Finn goes on to compare the teaching methods of five (mostly white) different schools in Northern New Jersey. The schools were classified according to social class, ranging from working-class to executive elite. Supposedly, each of the schools had different expectations of their students and tailored the instruction accordingly. Working-class children were learning to follow directions and perform low-paying jobs, while the executive elite were learning to be "masters of the world." The working-class children were punished for assertiveness and initiative and the elite children were rewarded for the same. This was still true in 1999, the year he published the aforementioned book.

In Kozol's book he mentions that we have a segregated system of education in which more experienced teachers teach the children of the privileged and the least experienced are sent to teach the children of minorities (page 8, Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Educational Apartheid, Harper's Magazine, September, 1 2005). Going further, Finn sees the teachers as part of the problem, in that the teachers of the working-class children are less motivated and excited to teach than those of the elite. Is he suggesting that the former are less qualified when he states that "almost everyone had attended a state school for their teaching certification"? Finn suggests that the education system is rigged against the lower social classes. Both he and Kozol see the system as perpetuating inequality.