An education activist, Jonathan Kozol works to end illiteracy, improve economic conditions for the poverty-stricken, and to awaken affluent Americans to the plight of the downtrodden. Since his National Book Award-winning first book, Death at an Early Age, Kozol has focused attention on the grievous inequalities of the American school system. In Shame of the Nation, he addresses the recent and rapid re-segregation of American public schools and the unhealthy “testing mania” that currently prevails.