"Savage Inequalities"(1991)By: Jonathan Kozol

                      This piece written by Jonathan Kozol was about his journy to a high school in Bronx New York. The author begins by giving a description of how the antique school looked from the outside and then goes on to talk about the innosence and happyness that the students at the school seem to express. I was surprised to find that as the author continued, the school was not as it would appear.                       The teachers looked like they actually cared alot about their students and the students for the most part were intelligent and understood alot about the world around them, so how could the school be suffering so badly. How is it possible that all this potential does not produce great graduation percentages or test scores, the answere as Jonathan revealed was that the school was actually falling apart. The principal of the school gave the author a tour and revealed that the fourth and fifth floors of the school had the most damage, with gaging whols in the sealing and even the guidance office had a buckt placed under a spot in the roof to collect dripping water.                  The ruins did not stop there, the schools older audotorium was completly unusable in a school were tuns of students loved to perfom. They performed as a way to express themselves and after some of the students sat aside and spoke to the author, he found just how intelligent they were. Each of those students were either black or hispanic, they understood the hars reality of the fact that they had a school that was falling apart and wouldnt be fixed because of them being minorites.                   I found this documentary to be very informative and filled with strong messages. It is hard to believe that so much talent is being waisted away because of segregation. Something needs to be done to help all communities like this one, people who have too much should understand that there are people with nothing and desreve just as much as everyone else. This would be a great read for all students who take their educational advantages for granted.                                     

" What High School Can Be" By: Theodore R. Sizer

              This report on High Schools done by Theodore R. Sizer was briliant in many ways. He was able to digg deep into the student part of what occured in a normal school day and understand the many problems. Most studies on high schools are done by test scores or percentages, it was refreshing to see that the author took the initiative and entered the high schools through the students perspective. Sizer does a great job of this by shadowing two students from different areas, through there high school day.
               Will who lives in an upper middle class suburban area is the first student Sizer talkes about and follows through the periods of the day. He describes Will as an athlete who basically remains motionless and quite throughout all of his classes. This to me was not a surprising sinario, i am familiar with the student athletes who only really participate in school durring the athletic activities after school.
                On the other hand, there was Martha from a high school in a working class neighborhood. Everyday she went through a ruitene, going to classes that were lifeless and stricked. The quote that stuck out for me the most about Martha would have to be when she turned to Sizer and said, " im not stupid, im not stupid, im not stupid!".  At that point in the report i really felt for Martha, so many students are put it classes that dont even challenge them, classes that just run through the process of school rather than really trying to make an impact on the students minds.
                I was especially surprised by the fact that the same basic ideas and practices for schooling presented by the committee of ten about 80 years ago were still present. The only difference however was the beliefe of how important science as a subject was, compared to foreign languages. The author shows a lot of emotion when he talks about the way high schools are recognized and what students go through. I find that he is completly correct when he sys that the authorites of these schools do not seem to acknowledge the weaknesses within the schools. Maybe if all high schools realized that somethings need o be changed to better the lives of there students, more kids would actually gain something more then anger or popularity from high school, they would gain a stronger education to send them out into the world.
               
      

"Creating the comprehensive high school"by James B Conant..& "In the Beginnning: the 1893 Report of the Committee of ten" by Charles Eliot

                  Both of these readings went on about schools, more specifically how high schools are run and how students were learning. The reading by Charles Eliot spoke about a committee who delt and debated over the questions high schools should be paying close attention to. While the piece writen by James Conant was geared more towards how students could be better taught and the best possible ways to run a good school.
                 It was diffiicult to read "In the Beginning..." because i felt asthough it was very dry and had no conection to its readers. The questions the counsels were asking however were correct. They foccused alot on the way a school should be run to better sute the needs of its students. Though this was written many years before, it still discussed many questions teachers and students deal with today.
                  The piece written by James Conant "Creating the Comprehensive High School" was much easier to read and understand. The author discussed high schools that him and his group had visited. He describes all the things he found they were doing wrong, problems that were even effecting students education. The author states that most students that were advanced were not being guided properly or made to take certain classes that would only benifite them. Conant also goes on to state revisions he thinks would help school systems work better. One way is by recomending certain classes like literature, math and sciences be taken at an earlier age then high school, because many students enter college withough sufficient knowlede in those subjects. In Conant's second book he does not mention those subjects as classes that should be taught at an earlier age.
                         I feel that i would agree with what both authors had to say because school systems, especially high schools have always been faulty. I believe it to be because it is difficult to find a balance between a serious high school invironment and a place were children could go to express themselves but learn at  the same time. Another major problem is funding, most schools just dont have to money to do the things asked of by these authors, they cant afford special counselers for the more talented kids or a teacher to constantly work with the kids who fall behind. Even so, maybe one day all these things will be posible and the problems faced by high schools today will be a thing of the past.