There are times when I wish J.B. Duke had spent his money on something other than that university over in Durham. He might, for instance, have lavished it on an estate to rival Biltmore. But nooooo…he had to have a university. To be fair, though, how could he have imagined the nut-house the place has become?
This year’s assigned reading for the freshmen was Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities, a screedy book that blames bad inner city schools on white racism. It’s a message that sells well in places infested with liberal guilt, but it’s been as thoroughly disproven as geocentrism.
Duke invited Kozol to give a talk recently and you can read all about it here.
Too bad they didn’t also invite Sol Stern, whose recent book Breaking Free is a strong indictment of public education. Stern also includes some very choice words regarding Kozol. He writes, “Kozol has worked hard to convince Americans that inner-city children are languishing academically only because their schools are segregated and starved for resources by a heartless society. In this, Kozol has been a shill for the teachers’ unions and education officials who keep calling for bogus reforms, while the real causes of school failure–the monopoly public school system, the union work rules–continue to wreak damage and inner-city schools sink even lower.”
And more: “Kozol’s account of his visit (to Cuba), Children of the Revolution, is a nauseating apologia for the Castro regime’s indoctrination of children and adults. Almost everyone else in the world knew about Castro’s appalling human rights record by this time…But such issues don’t make their way into Kozol’s rhapsodic account.”
TAKE THAT!
