He's angry about inequalities in public education. He's angry about segregation that still exists in inner city schools. And most of all, he's angry about the emphasis placed on standardized tests after the implementation of the federal government's No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.,”Jonathan Kozol is angry.

He's angry about inequalities in public education. He's angry about segregation that still exists in inner-city schools. And most of all, he's angry about the emphasis placed on standardized tests after the implementation of the federal government's No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.

Kozol, author, educator and public education activist, presented these concerns in a lecture delivered to several hundred students and faculty in the Alumni Memorial Union Ballrooms Monday night.

The presentation ran the gamut from humorous personal anecdotes to impassioned tirades against government policies that he said stifle creativity in the name of test scores.

Much of Kozol's speech focused on Francesca, a young first-year teacher at an inner-city school in Boston, who is the subject of his latest book, "Letters to a Young Teacher."

Kozol applauded Francesca's ability to inspire improvement and high exam scores from her students despite the fact that she never taught a test-prep lesson.

"She wanted her children to know that they were treasured for the little people they were and not judged by external measures," Kozol said. "She would say, 'I refuse to treat them as a different species from mainstream America.' "

Kozol said 50 percent of teachers in inner-city schools quit within three years because they are so constrained by standardized test preparation, which can dominate as much as three-fourths of the school year.

This ultra-structured format also seeps into the mission statements of underprivileged schools, Kozol said. He said administrators tend to emphasize the economic contributions their students may have in society if they succeed according to state standards.

He said a mission statement in a kindergarten classroom he visited read, "The mission of our school is to develop products that will sharpen our nation's competitive edge in the global marketplace."

To Kozol, this is simply unacceptable.

"Products as children—try saying that in the affluent white suburbs and the parents would shut that school down in two days," Kozol said. "Why should these little babies care about the global marketplace? They care about belly buttons and fuzzy caterpillars."

To rebel against this structured setup and foster creativity in children, Kozol said teachers must be well-prepared, exuberant and ready to fight inequalities in the long run. Kozol chastised Teach For America, a program that sends recent college graduates to teach in inner city schools, for only requiring a two-year commitment to bridging the education gap.

"I think there's something colonial about sending people in for two years to win over the hearts of the poor and disappear," he said.

Kozol said he has made his dream of equality in public education a lifelong mission and has no plans of backing down.

"I intend to keep on fighting in this struggle until my dying day," he said as his closing remark.

As part of this struggle, Kozol is taking his message to Washington, D.C. later this year. After engaging in a partial fast for several months to protest unreturned phone calls from Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, he finally garnered the Democrat's attention and received an invitation to meet with him about education reform Dec. 5. Kennedy is chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Kozol urged audience members to send letters to Kennedy's office echoing Kozol's thoughts.

Audience members said they were impressed by Kozol's passion on the topic.

Michael Tedone, a College of Arts & Sciences junior and native of California, said he was amazed to hear Kozol speak about the condition of public schools in Los Angeles where classes of more than 30 students are forced to meet in trailers outside the school.

"The state of the school he was describing and the inequality it's going through was completely different from the school I went to," he said.

Michael Greuel, also a College of Arts & Sciences junior, said he was inspired by Kozol's selflessness in advocating educational equality.

"His anger toward lawmakers and the No Child Left Behind Act is obviously rooted in personal passion," he said. "He really wants to better serve these children and doesn't have a personal agenda. I through that was really admirable."

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