UNEQUAL FUNDING MEANS UNEQUAL SCHOOLS, KOZOL SAYS

Poorest children get the poorest schools which, in turn, helps to keep them in poverty, the author contends.

In 1951 in Topeka, Kan., Linda Brown had to walk 25 blocks to an all-black school, even though there was a new, modern school for white children only four blocks from her home. Her father and a group of parents filed a lawsuit charging the local school board with illegal discrimination.

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of Brown. It outlawed separate schools for blacks because the court felt they were inherently unequal.

Today, nearly 40 years after the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision launched school desegregation, not much real progress has been made.

That's the conclusion of noted author Jonathan Kozol, who traveled around the United States during the late 1980s, looking at schools for his latest book project. To his surprise, he found segregated schools still very much alive. His book, Savage Inequalities, describes the differences he found in the American school system.

Kozol found that many schools could not afford to educate children adequately. He found schools without computers, books, heat, restrooms or enough teachers. The public doesn't hear of these problems, he says, _ just the ever-growing numbers of drugs, fights and crimes.

"So long as ghettos exist, there will be violence, pathology, drugs and desperation because ghettos are evil and diseased institutions," says Kozol. "They create rage." As a result, schools in ghettos have deteriorated from places of learning to places of violence.

Research has shown that as middle-class families and businesses move to the suburbs, the inner cities have declined. Sometimes all that is left is a ghetto.

No money, no choice

Because they do not have money or transportation, children living in ghettos often have no choice but to attend the school in their neighborhood. Kozol found some of these neighborhood schools flooded with sewage or located in condemned buildings. Many operated without books, paper, chalk, or pencils.

Depending on the state, 20 percent to 100 percent of school funding comes from local property taxes on businesses and residences. The largest part of a property tax bill goes toward local schools. In Marion County, for example, school systems receive an average of 45.1 percent of property tax revenues. The amount of funding available to schools depends on the wealth of the neighborhoods surrounding the school.

In parts of Indianapolis, houses sell for less than $10,000, thus giving the schools little money to work with. Outside funds are needed to help pay for school buildings, staff and materials.

Politicians and reporters talk about these poorly funded schools in terms of what can be done to improve them.

"A lot of people would tell you that they'd like to figure out how to make an inner-city school _ a ghetto school _ that would be violence-free, or a drug-free ghetto school, or a ghetto school with more innovations for ghetto children," Kozol says. "But nobody in America is questioning the existence of the ghetto school to start with."

Lessons in reality

Kozol believes integrated schools would provide more than equal education for all children. He thinks integrated schools could solve some of America's racial problems.

"A segregated school gives a black kid a message that they are inferior . . . to (whites) or dangerous to us or infectious to us in some way, so we don't want to get too close to you. That's the message I think kids get," Kozol says.

"For white kids, an (integrated school) teaches them about the nation they really live in. 'Cause by the end of the century, about a third of this nation will be nonwhite, and most of the world is nonwhite. . . . So the sooner we get that lesson the better. And also, it will teach us not to hate each other.

If voters, distance or funds keep schools segregated, Kozol at least wants every American child to receive the same amount of money for education. He has no concrete proof that it is possible to equalize education, but he does have a plan that he believes will work.

"I would take all the money we collect by taxation and go to every school system in America and say, `How many kids do you have?' " says Kozol. "All right, we're giving every child, let's say, $10,000 for education this year. So it would go to every kid equally. At present, it depends on the neighborhood where you live, depends on how well your houses are kept.

"Get rid of the property tax. Replace it by a single form of funding from Washington that comes out of income tax. Ultimately, it should be nationally based."

Little from federal government

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 41.8 million children were enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools for the 1990-91 school year.

During the previous school year (the latest year for which funding statistics are available), local, state and federal governments combined spent an average of $4,960 for each student. Only $338 of this money came from the federal government.

Assuming that every child received $10,000 of federal money, the federal government would have to spend an additional $404 billion.

"I think it would be very simple to implement," Kozol says. "It would be remarkably easy because every child would be treated equally.

Kozol has presented his plan to governors and members of Congress. He has found some leaders sympathetic to the cause, even eager to try the plan, but he believes the power lies in the White House, where he has yet to find support.

"I don't think any plausible (presidential) candidate will have the nerve to suggest (equal funding) because it will make the wealthy people angry," says Kozol. "It means they won't be able to guarantee their kids a sort of an exclusive education any longer."