The Single Worst, Most Dangerous Idea

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses Jonathan Kozol's article, "The Single Worst, Most Dangerous Idea", which is structured as a letter to a first-year teacher whereby Kozol tries to move the subject of the teacher's concern from standardized testing to the voucher discussion. The paper relates that the article discusses the issue of education vouchers in New York and notes that Kozol disagrees strongly with the idea of vouchers, because in his words, they give the incorrect impression that a voucher will enable parents in poor neighborhoods to send their children to the kinds of private schools attended by children of the affluent. The paper further notes that Kozol feels very strongly about this issue, and that something should be done to prevent segregation from prevailing in the public and private school system.

From the Paper:

"The selection process will also lead to some segregation, he proposes just because of the nature of the process. Because a lottery process is used to narrow the list of applicants, the application process has become somewhat extensive and esoteric; that is, applicants typically only learn how to fill out an application based on referral from a family with a student currently enrolled in the institution or from a newspaper such as The New York Times, Kozol claims that it is inevitable that many parents from the South Bronx looking to use their vouchers for the education will never be informed of the proper application process, and thus the voucher system is flawed in that way (Kozol 57). The last main argument Kozol makes is that to disprove how voucher advocates say any segregation will cease to exist once the free-market of education takes over and schools compete to vie for the attention for the prospective students' applications. Kozol says that hoping this will happen places too much "blind faith" in the system, such that everyone involved will act responsibly and according to the public's best interest rather than their own (Kozol 58). Overall, Kozol systematically attempts to disprove his opposition's claims one by one, and in the process shows a very strong opinion against the implementation of a voucher system."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Kozol, Jonathan. "The Single Worst, Most Dangerous Idea." Principal 87 Sep/Oct (2007): 56-59.

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