Unusually good, nuanced and ultimately fair dissection of Jonathan Kozol’s work by The Quick and the Ed’s Kevin Carey today. A stark contrast to what Carey rightly describes as the “standard conservative anti-Kozol piece, which has become a genre unto itself.”
Carey’s main point is a good one. “In in his righteous anger and dark pessimism, [Kozol] has become blind to all evidence of progress and possibility with our public schools.” Having read a lot of Kozol and worked for years in precisely the neighborhood he chronicles, I’m inclined to agree with Carey. That said, there is an undeniable tendency on the part of both teachers and reformers to congratulate themselves for their effort and incremental progress. The needle is moving, but barely. Anger is still the right reaction. There’s a hell of a lot more to be unhappy about than not.
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