So where have all the educational reformers gone? For that matter, where has educational reform gone? Kozol paints a grim picture of betrayal in this chapter, detailing program after program, alleged reformer after alleged reformer, who have left no long term effect on American education.
Consider the Higher Horizons program of the 1960’s, which started out paying $50 more per student than was spent on children not involved with that program. The press loved it. More instruction for the Three R’s! This will be great! Within the first year, that $50 became $27 per student and the praise shifted from the breadth and scope of the program to how little it was costing the taxpayers. By 1966, the program was discontinued.
Every Presidential administration has made promises to fix our inner-city schools and desegregate the student body. It hasn’t happened yet. Both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush promised to lower the dropout rate from 30 percent to 10 percent. Bush was a one-termer, so over a span of twelve years, the dropout rate must have remained at 30 percent in order for them both to make that promise.
George W. Bush’s educational reforms are no better. His administration has actually managed to keep children out of the Head Start program, although he stated that Head Start would be the vehicle for teaching “all our children to read.”
Our current President, lying to the American public about his goals and aims?
Perish the thought.
