One day we will give more exams to children in our inner cities...

Interviewer: "If you were an adviser to one of the presidential candidates, which issues would you insist that he address?"

Kozol: "I would advise the candidate to reopen the dream of Martin Luther King. King did not say I have a dream that some day we will give more exams to children in our inner cities. He did not say I have a dream that some day we will hold children whom we have cheated accountable for their failure. He did not even say I have a dream that we will put more computers and better software into segregated schools, which is pretty much what the candidates are talking about. I would like to see a presidential candidate resolve to fight the enormous forces within the banking and real estate industries and the media that have locked us into a shameful and perpetual apartheid.

Second, I would ask the candidate to abolish the local property tax as the source of school funding and instead fund the public education of every American child out of the federal income tax. Then a child’s education would not depend on whether she was born in the poorest white rural section of southern Ohio or the richest white suburb of New England. After all, when we ask children to pledge allegiance to the flag, it’s not to the flag of the South Bronx or Beverly Hills, but to the American flag."

- From  this interview with Jonathan Kozol.