By host Tom Ashbrook:

Jonathan Kozol’s view of the history of race and American education goes something like this: at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement, the country decided that “separate but equal” did not work. It struggled for two decades with integration, busing, mixing up the kids. Then it shrugged, looked away, and let it slide.

The result, charges Kozol, is educational “apartheid” in America’s cities, and a 21st century re-embrace of racial segregation that dooms urban children of color to lives at the bottom. And Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” program, charges this longtime crusader, does not right the scales. Kozol critics push back, but Kozol’s stories break your heart.

Hear a conversation with Jonathan Kozol about the race line in America’s schools.

Guests:

Jonathan Kozol, has been working with inner-city children for more than 40 years. His new book is “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America”

Amy Wilkins, principal partner of the Education Trust, a Washington-based education policy group.