The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America

Kozol begins Chapter 11 by describing the “sustained attack” against teachers to oppose the policies of No Child Left Behind. Some have accused teachers who argue against school accountability practices of holding the racist belief that children of color can’t learn. Kozol claims it is “very much in fashion in our nation’s capital” to tell the “victim” that he must try harder to reach his potential. He argues that this “hortatory rhetoric costs nothing for society” while actually improving inner-city schools would be expensive for taxpayers (266). Meanwhile, schools must prioritize the requirements of No Child Left Behind, which sometimes means abandoning desegregation projects.

Kozol describes how so much time and energy has been devoted to developing standards-based education programs that there is great resistance to changing them. Because of the “teacher-proof” nature of these curricula, many urban principals and administrators defend them as a solution for the high turnover rates in their schools. However, Kozol points to another reason why “tough, no-nonsense” practices are chosen over more progressive ones. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, young, white, “well-intending but unconsciously quite patronizing intellectuals” came into Black neighborhoods (270), promoting more unstructured, self-led “open education.