cisely the poorer areas that need the most money in order to counter the weighty forces of oppression they face outside of the school in comparison to wealthier children. There is a crucial need for money raised by property taxes as well as by the state and federal government to be shared more equitably and responsibly. The fundamental question is if poorer, often non-White, children are not treated the same outside of the education system, how can they be treated the same within it? In sum, the great equalizer, has been implemented to provide, at its best, equal, but not equitable resources for children.The preceding notion of who deserves resources is challenged by the implementation of education as a gatekeeper and its relation to how resources are distributed. In terms of resources, the notion of who is deserving is tied to the myth of scarcity inherent to the gatekeeper ideology: "Efficiency in educational provision for low-income children...is secreted and doled out by our municipalities as if it were a scarce resource" (Kozol, p. 114, 1991). To this end, resources are rationed by those in power, according to who is considered most deserving and money is strategically invested to match the "potential economic value of each person"(Kozol, p. 74, 1991); Black and Latino children are most affected by this rationing because they are deemed least valuable to the economy. Concurrently, they are given less of what they need to learn, further perpetuating a cycle in which "those who have the fewest resources outside of school receive the least in school" (Children's Defense Fund, p. 71, 1997). Through complex federal and state policies the gulf between the richest and poorest schools is increased, ultimately resulting in an educational caste system, where caste implies stratification and little or no opportunity for mobility (Kozol, p. 55 & 199, 1991). A vivid representation of this unjust distribution of resources is the realit...
