How then must a citizen have proficient knowledge if he or she cannot even sit in a classroom that is environmentally safe for them? Children come into school with rotting teeth, she says [school nurse]. They sit in class, leaning on their elbows, in discomfort. Many kids have chronic and untreated illness. I had a child in here yesterday with diabetes. Her blood-sugar level was over 700. Close to coma level(Kozal 138). With the health conditions as poor as that, how is there any way possible that these student will learn and grow from their experience in schools? There is no money to be given by the parents to help the situation either. Camden, New Jersey, is the fourth-poorest city of more than 50,000 people in America. In 1985, nearly a quarter of its families had less than $5,000 annual income. Nearly 60 percent of its residents receive public assistance. Its children have the highest rate of poverty in the United States (Kozal 137). Kozal speaks of poignant situations in which students attend schools that are so horrible no politician, school board president, or business CEO would dream of working. The areas in which these children must learn are next to dumpsites, toxic waste sites, and in the worst ghettos of the cities. This is the learning environment in which they are provided. What then, does this tell the children? They are not worth clean rooms, nice books, friendly school environments, anything. Why should these children care about English or science if they dont even have the books or the equipment? America is only setting these children up to fail and be added to the labor class. Unequal schooling reproduces the social division of labor (Bowles 49). To have children as the highest rate of poverty is only pushing them further from being equal citizens. The unequal schooling these children are subjected to is Americas way of meeting the needs of capitalist employers for a disciplined and skilled lab...
