The Shame of the Nation
The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America
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Narrated by:
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Dean Robertson
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By:
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Jonathan Kozol
About this listen
“The nation needs to be confronted with the crime that we’re committing and the promises we are betraying. This is a book about betrayal of the young, who have no power to defend themselves. It is not intended to make [listeners] comfortable.”
Over the past several years, Jonathan Kozol has visited nearly 60 public schools. Virtually everywhere, he finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, a state of nearly absolute apartheid now prevails in thousands of our schools.
The segregation of Black children has reverted to a level that the nation has not seen since 1968. Few of the students in these schools know white children any longer. Second, a protomilitary form of discipline has now emerged, modeled on stick-and-carrot methods of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons but targeted exclusively at Black and Hispanic children. And third, as high-stakes testing takes on pathological and punitive dimensions, liberal education in our inner-city schools has been increasingly replaced by culturally barren and robotic methods of instruction that would be rejected out of hand by schools that serve the mainstream of society.
Filled with the passionate voices of children and their teachers and some of the most revered and trusted leaders in the Black community, The Shame of the Nation is a triumph of firsthand reporting that pays tribute to those undefeated educators who persist against the odds, but directly challenges the chilling practices now being forced upon our urban systems by the Bush administration. In their place, Kozol offers a humane, dramatic challenge to our nation to fulfill at last the promise made some 50 years ago to all our youngest citizens.
From The Shame of the Nation
“I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations,” the president said in his campaign for reelection in September 2004. “It’s working. It’s making a difference.” It is one of those deadly lies, which, by sheer repetition, is at length accepted by large numbers of Americans as, perhaps, a rough approximation of the truth. But it is not the truth, and it is not an innocent misstatement of the facts. It is a devious appeasement of the heartache of the parents of the poor and, if it is not forcefully resisted and denounced, it is going to lead our nation even further in a perilous direction."
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Critic reviews
"Respected author Kozol delivers a scathing indictment of public education and public policy....Compelling." (Booklist)
"Sharp and poignant." (Publishers Weekly)
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Story
Part memoir, part manifesto, Radical is this fearless advocate's incisive, intensely personal call-to-arms. Rhee combines the story of her own extraordinary experience with dozens of compelling examples from schools she's worked in and studied-from students from unspeakable home lives who have thrived in the classroom to teachers whose radical methods have produced unprecedented leaps in achievement. Radical chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child, her rage at the special interests blocking badly-needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to create outstanding public schools.
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Good read after seeing Waiting for Superman
- By Marie on 04-10-13
By: Michelle Rhee
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The Global Achievement Gap
- Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills our Children Need - and What We Can Do About it
- By: Tony Wagner
- Narrated by: Paul Costanzo
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Education expert Tony Wagner situates our school problems in the context of the global knowledge economy and analyzes the skills necessary for our young people to succeed.
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made obsolete by 'MostLikelyToSucceed'-still great
- By MichaelS on 04-01-16
By: Tony Wagner
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Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy
- Oxford University Press: Pivotal Moments in US History
- By: James T. Patterson
- Narrated by: Steve Anderson
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Most Americans still see Brown v. Board of Education as a triumph - but was it? James T. Patterson shrewdly explores the provocative questions that still swirl around the case. A wide range of characters animates the story, from the little-known African-Americans who dared to challenge Jim Crow with lawsuits; to Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Justice himself; to Earl Warren, who shepherded a fractured Court to a unanimous decision.
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The Fight Against Inequality
- By Marcus on 03-05-15
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The War Against Boys
- How Misguided Policies Are Harming Our Young Men
- By: Christina Hoff Sommers
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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An updated and revised edition of the controversial classic - now more relevant than ever - argues that boys are the ones languishing socially and academically, resulting in staggering social and economic costs. After two major waves of feminism and decades of policy reform, women have made massive strides in education. Today they outperform men in nearly every measure of social, academic, and vocational well-being. Christina Hoff Sommers contends that it's time to take a hard look at present-day realities and recognize that boys need help.
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Important Book
- By VeritasPlz on 11-05-18
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Fail U.
- The False Promise of Higher Education
- By: Charles J. Sykes
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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With chapters exploring the staggering costs of a college education, the sharp decline in tenured faculty and teaching loads, the explosion of administrator jobs, the grandiose building plans (gyms, food courts, student recreation centers), and the hysteria surrounding the "epidemic" of campus rapes, "triggers", "micro-aggressions", and other forms of alleged trauma, Fail U. concludes by offering a different vision of higher education - one that is affordable, more productive, and better-suited to meet the needs of a diverse range of students.
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Very glad I listened, not enough resolution
- By James Collier on 03-01-17
By: Charles J. Sykes
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Weapons of Mass Instruction
- A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling
- By: John Taylor Gatto
- Narrated by: Michael Puttonen
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of traditional education which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a byproduct of rote-memorization drills. Gatto's earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, introduced the now-famous expression of the title into the common vernacular. Weapons of Mass Instruction adds another chilling metaphor to the brief against conventional schooling.
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I will never see school the same
- By Nicole on 05-21-15
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Creative Schools
- The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education
- By: Lou Aronica, Ken Robinson
- Narrated by: Ken Robinson PhD
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Ken Robinson is one of the world's most influential voices in education, and his 2006 TED Talk on the subject is the most viewed in the organization's history. Now, the internationally recognized leader on creativity and human potential focuses on one of the most critical issues of our time: how to transform the nation's troubled educational system.
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The Answer to Why Students Stop Trying
- By Alison Sattler on 07-21-15
By: Lou Aronica, and others
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Excellent Sheep
- The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
- By: William Deresiewicz
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale's admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to "practical" subjects like economics and computer science, students are losing the ability to think in innovative ways.
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skip the book read the essay
- By Amazon Customer on 05-07-15
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How Children Succeed
- Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
- By: Paul Tough
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control. How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character.
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Article based on interviews
- By Anonymous User on 10-24-24
By: Paul Tough
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Please Stop Helping Us
- How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed
- By: Jason L. Riley
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Why is it that so many efforts by liberals to lift the Black underclass not only fail, but often harm the intended beneficiaries? In Please Stop Helping Us, Jason L. Riley examines how well-intentioned welfare programs are in fact holding Black Americans back. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they price a disproportionate number of Blacks out of the labor force. Affirmative action in higher education is intended to address past discrimination, but the result is fewer Black college graduates than would otherwise exist.
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Required reading
- By Ken Larsen on 02-15-15
By: Jason L. Riley
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Ghetto
- The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea
- By: Mitchell Duneier
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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On March 29, 1516, the city council of Venice issued a decree forcing Jews to live in il geto - a closed quarter named for the copper foundry that once occupied the area. The term stuck. In this sweeping and original interpretation, Mitchell Duneier traces the idea of the ghetto from its beginnings in the 16th century and its revival by the Nazis to the present. As Duneier shows, we cannot understand the entanglements of race, poverty, and place in America today without recalling the history of the ghetto in Europe, as well as later efforts to understand the problems of the American city.
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Impressive
- By Jean on 12-10-16
By: Mitchell Duneier
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The New Education
- How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux
- By: Cathy N. Davidson
- Narrated by: Carolyn Cook
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Our current system of higher education dates to the period from 1865 to 1925, when the nation's new universities created grades and departments, majors and minors, in an attempt to prepare young people for a world transformed by the telegraph and the Model T. As Cathy Davidson argues in The New Education, this approach to education is wholly unsuited to the era of the gig economy.
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Practical Enough / Scholarly Enough
- By Amazon Customer on 07-22-20
What listeners say about The Shame of the Nation
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Robin Edwards
- 07-20-18
important and informative
Wow, what an important and informative read. I highly recommend this book, we need to be paying attention to this issue as a nation.
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- Beth S.
- 04-14-21
Should be mandatory reading!
Wow! Such a well presented and eye opening account of the struggles children of color face in trying to get a decent education!
You would think it was a story about the days “long ago” and the fact it isn’t is heartbreaking!
The book might be a challenge to get through in hard copy, but the narrator does such a FANTASTIC job, I was riveted to even the driest presentation of data.
The story is a perfect balance of children, teachers, parents and the system to really open your eyes if you, like me, grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood and through poor, attended an all white public school.
I STRONGLY recommend this for everyone, and especially those considering going into education, as he presents examples of teachers who, against strong odds, are still making a huge difference in the lives of children, BUT... we MUST make it better and easier for our educators to do so!
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- Sierra
- 01-27-11
Thank You
I found this book to be extremely inspiring. I live in a middle classtown in Minnesota,far from inner-city schools and totally unnaware tha issues such as these still managed to exist. Mr. Kozol does a wonderful job of illustrating the innocence and wonder of the children most affected by inequality and I would reccommend this book to anyone.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Juelz
- 08-21-19
Tears, tears, and more tears!
I was a student in, an educator of, and the parent of two students that has and will attend, a deeply segregated school in one of the United States most liberal cities-- the New York City public schools system. I was recently told by an admissions aide in a district 11 Family Welcome center, a NYCDOE center that allows parents to register their children to district 8 and 11 schools, that I could not enroll my son, who is a soon-to-be kindergarten student, in a school that was much closer to my home. This school reserved a waitlist that was highly selective to families of whom resided in the private homes of Morris Park, unlike myself who lives in Parkchester. Parkchester children are all dumped in P.S. 106. For me to get my child in PS/MS 498 the principal would have to meet me and sign off on it. But I'm Black, so I am a victim of New York City's apartheid school system!
This book is a sad reminder that NOTHING has changed! In fact, schools are more segregated now then ever before. I recommend this book for everyone. Whether you're an educator, a pastor, a racist, a saint, or a cynic, this book is for you!
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- Denise Robb
- 03-13-16
Changed my life.
This book changed my life. I teach its message to my college students. I will carry it with me until the shameful flame of injustice has been annihilated. My only criticism is the reader was very one note and it needed some variation.
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- Eleanor
- 08-24-12
Get the ABRIDGED version!
Kozol has some excellent points to make, but he repeats himself over and over in order to make them. This book did not need to be this long! It could have been one-third the length and the point would have been much better made!
My primary complaint is that Kozol's own narrative overshadows that of the students that he is advocating for. He spends far too much of the book berating the reader when he could be letting us hear what the students themselves have to say.
Again, the overall point is very important - the de facto segregation of our urban schools. But it is so poorly written, rambling along without clear chapter topics, and LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG, that I wouldn't recommend this to anyone in its complete form. If it's available in an abridged form, get that version!
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- saundralhh
- 08-20-19
very academic reading
I started out listening to this book for a class. However, I finished reading it because I found it very interesting an in-depth information about the national education system and how it works for and against certain people.
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- Small Mountain
- 10-08-20
Energetic, but Feels Dated and Hard to Believe at Face Value
Trying to write a concise review of this book is challenging. On one hand, the anecdotes within are well-written and interesting, and the problems faced by students in those anecdotes are stark. On the other hand, the assertions behind why those situations occur does not agree with personal anecdotes. This book is about segregation in schools, and how having schools that have a near-100% proportion of non-white students is leading to a cycle of a certain segment of the population being cut off from the mainstreams. Being family of teachers and students of integrated classes, though, makes me wonder how much a role the look of the student body really plays. Integration is fine, but I don’t think changing the look of the student body would reduce situations like the ones described in Kozol’s anecdotes, at least not much. It looks to me like the allocation of public resources needs to be improved as the top priority. Kids get stressed and stress reduces their ability to develop skills and relationship; a lack of basic physical and emotional needs is about the most stressful deficiency one can imagine for students, and the issues in Kozol’s anecdotes mostly seem to boil down to that issue, even past the issue of integration. That issue, as well as the emphasis on school geography, is why the book feels dated at this point as well. My children and many others are in a virtual schooling setting due to the pandemic, and the classrooms are largely integrated in our area; the integration, though, does not seem to solve a bunch of problems all on its own. The children themselves do not seem to care much or even notice the looks of the other children; they do care about physical and emotional stressors, though, like the pandemic, food security, parental attention, etc. Kozol’s book is interesting, but it just does not seem like his primary solution to the nation’s education disparity would actually fix the problems he implies it would.
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- Santiago
- 12-01-09
Enough bad mouthing our school systems
I think Jonathan Kozol should spend more time providing suggestions and recommendations instead of just ripping the educators who work so hard to get their students the best education possible.
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1 person found this helpful