Educator Fasts to Protest No Child Left Behind

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 13  /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Monday, September 17 at 2 p.m. at the National Press Club, one of the nation's most respected educators, whose books are read by millions of our teachers, will explain the reasons for a two-month fast he's undertaken to protest the racially coded and destructive aspects of the federal law No Child Left Behind.

Jonathan Kozol, 71 years old, National Book Award-winning author of Death at an Early Age and Savage Inequalities, has been taking only small amounts of mostly liquid foods, a stipulation his physician has imposed in order to avert the risk of long-term damage to his heart.

At the press club, Kozol will provide the details of a comprehensive plan for the radical revision of the education law that goes far beyond the ineffectual suggestions offered by Republican and Democratic leaders.  "NCLB, instead of lessening the achievement gap between the races, is turning thousands of inner-city schools into Dickensian test-prep factories devoid of the culturally expansive course of study given to white children, deadening the intellects of inner-city kids, robbing them of the critical capacities needed to survive in high school or to function as discerning citizens, and driving out 50% of newly recruited urban teachers, who consider this debased curriculum a vicious insult to their pupils."

Kozol's proposals also require states to authorize and finance a child's right to transfer from a failing district into a successful school in a suburban district, a policy permissible under the Supreme Court segregation ruling of June 28 so long as it is carried out in terms that are race-neutral.

Democrats on the Senate education committee have told Jonathan that, although they support many changes he's proposed, the influential chairman of the panel, Senator Edward Kennedy, will ultimately call the shots on this decision.

"But," says Kozol, "in my repeated efforts to talk with Senator Kennedy, who has been a friend to me in years gone by, I have run into a cold stone wall.  Other senators tell me that Kennedy is likely to reject truly sweeping changes in the law because he co-sponsored the initial bill in a deal with the Republicans.

"On Monday," Jonathan says, "I will be making a plea to Senator Kennedy, on behalf of tens of thousands of our best but bitterly frustrated teachers, no longer to genuflect before a failed Republican agenda but to rethink his views about this law before the havoc it has caused creates an even wider gulf between the races." 

The Office of Jonathan Kozol