The Night is Dark and I Am Far from Home: Political Indictment of US Public Schools

by Jonathan Kozol

Kozol, author of Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America, offers an absorbing analysis of the ethical crisis confronting our culture. In this fourth edition, a new introduction and epilogue place the book in the context of contemporary issues and attitudes.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Psychology, Politics, History, Teaching, Sociology

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1975

About the author

Jonathan Kozol is a non-fiction writer, educator, and activist best known for his work towards reforming American public schools. Upon graduating from Harvard, he received a Rhodes scholarship. After returning to the United States, Kozol became a teacher in the Boston Public Schools, until he was fired for teaching a Langston Hughes poem. Kozol has held two Guggenheim Fellowships, has twice been a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, and has also received fellowships from the Field and Ford Foundations. Most recently, Kozol has founded and is running a non-profit called Education Action. The group is dedicated to grassroots organizing of teachers across the country who wish to push back against NCLB and the most recent Supreme Court decision on desegregation, and to help create a single, excellent, unified system of American public schools.

Reviews

[Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only a short point - the 1990 Critical annotations chapter redeems the excesses of unchecked vitriol so unlike the caring later writings of Kozol. I imagine writing this book was cathartic, but it didn’t end up being very pragmatic. As an historical marker - yeah …

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was seemed to be a great call to arms when I first read it for Buzz Alexander's Prison and Literature class. Now it seems like standard leftist rage, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[david · Rating 5 out of 5]

an absolute must read. this was a cover to cover that was rousing to the end. i was seriously pissed off for days after reading this.

[Ellen Shachter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my life at age 19. I never looked at my world through quite the same eyes.

[Michael David · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is a radical take on the school system, and the solution it offers is nothing short of the system's deconstruction. I take offense with Kozol thinking of people never being independent of one another: I believe in the concept of free will, and in the ability of man to choose. Blaming the children of a poor family of ten isn't right, I agree, but I don't think the parents of those eight children should be exonerated for the children that they willfully produced: a man just doesn't slip and land on his wife's vagina, and he certainly doesn't do it 'accidentally' eight times. That's just stupid. There are poor people who rise above their circumstances because they know enough not to repeat their parents' mistakes, or are sane enough to observe other people. There are some poor people who succeed, and their success is not just because of luck, or of eschewing school. They succeed because they choose to delay their gratifications, knowing the effect of having too many children from their parents, and then working hard to improve their lot in life.

I came from such a family. I don't eat potato chips or drown myself in television because I've had sane parents (who were both poor) who realized the value of family planning. It's easy to be an armchair idealist. I just think that the total deconstruction of the school system isn't the solution. To blame the system of education for parental shortcomings isn't a good enough excuse. I think Kozol is wrong in this regard. It's also up to the child and up to the parents as much as the state and the school system being responsible for the child's growth.

Change always starts with oneself. I know I won't be the next Gandhi, but I'll fucking try my best to be a great writer, and that's because I will myself to become one. I won't use any school system as an excuse.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I had reviewed this last year when I finished it. It's an unusual Kozol book, an early one in which he admits he let his righteous indignation get the better of him at times. So this edition is annotated by the older Kozol. That in itself is interesting! I wouldn't say it's the most useful analysis of US education because times have changed so much and Kozol was so angry. But his passion for young people and his belief in learning shine through nevertheless.

[cee · Rating 5 out of 5]

a lot of what kozol has to say holds true whether in what is literally done in schools or what the spirit of changes since 1975 have been. kept remembering my high school homeroom teacher who made me sit in the hall because i wouldn't stand for the pledge. anyway it's a very illuminating book and i admire kozol's commitment to principle

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a radical, dense book for being so short. I loved all the ideas in it, the research, the calls to action. It took me a while to read because it’s dealing with hard hitting subjects. In that aspect it was very emotional, so I had to take breaks while reading.

[John Seebach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can you imagine reading this in 1975?

The passages where he calls for universal health care make me sad/angry in the wake of the pandemic (start of the Delta pandemic?) 45 years on and nothing going.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy, he is radical. He says revolt even if you don't have a better solution. He cuts you no slack if you want to work with the oppressed, and then go home and drink your brandy and smoke your cigars. He will not let you say - "I like his message but it is so thugish and he doesn't really tell me what to do just what NOT to do - he says that you can't sooth yourself into thinking that your life is separate from the underpaid, underserved, underclass. He is disturbing and wrong and right and his 1975 words stir up the dust of Ferguson and get in your eyes and march along with Gandhi and King and Jesus F. Christ. Get out of my head so I can make my reservations for dinner and write my check to the homeless shelter and put up my tree.

I am indeed far from home.

[Jerrold Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book on American education ever written. I taught for 32 years and no other education textbook guided my principles of instruction better in my lit-comp-humanities-rhetoric classes. It was required reading in my Advanced Comp classes. Should be required reading for juniors and graduate refresher courses in Schools of Education. Most honest and clear book on the main flaws and concrete solution you can practice in 1st hour on Monday.

[Bobby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't remember this book that well, but it was very influential in developing how I viewed the world and my place in it. On that merit, I'll give it four stars. Basically, it talks about the education of the priveleged and how priveleged children are socialized to rationalize and legitimize the role of exploiter they will soon inherit in society.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely chilling.

[Carrie]

education

[Rhod · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I am being generous with three stars - thought the book rambled quite a bit and was not nearly as clear an indictment of schools as I expected.

[Jane Mosley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book.