America 's Educational Apartheid, By Jonathan Kozol

Due to the forgoing facts brought to light by Kozol in his essay, it is apparent that there is a growing trend of racial segregation within America’s urban and inner-city schools. Educators and politicians seem to have abolished any semblance of respect for learning for its own sake and have made the school system a joyless experience for the majority of the children, which in turn seems to be related to the high drop-out rate in the inner-city schools. For America to remain great, just and competitive in today’s world, these educational anomalies must be timely addressed and corrected adequately.

It has become common today to dismiss the lack of education coming from our impoverished public schools. Jonathan Kozol an award winning social injustice writer, trying to bring to light how our school system talks to their students. In his essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal," Kozol visits many public high schools as well as public elementary schools across the country, realizing the outrageous truth about segregating in our public education system. Kozol, cross-examining children describing their feelings as being put away where no one desires your presence. Children feeling diminished for being a minority; attending a school that does not take into consideration at the least the child’s well being. Showing clear signs of segregation in the education system.

“Still Separate, Still Unequal”, written by Jonathan Kozol, describes the reality of urban public schools and the isolation and segregation the students there face today. Jonathan Kozol illustrates the grim reality of the inequality that African American and Hispanic children face within todays public education system. In this essay, Kozol shows the reader, with alarming statistics and percentages, just how segregated Americas urban schools have become. He also brings light to the fact that suburban schools, with predominantly white students, are given far better funding and a much higher quality education, than the poverty stricken schools of the urban neighborhoods.

Kozol’s main argument is that public education should be free and equal to people of all economic classes. Kozol believes that children from poor families are cheated out of a future by unequipped, understaffed and under funded schools in the United State’s inner cities and less affluent suburbs. The majority of these children are non-white, and living amongst poverty and crime. Kozol argues about the unfair standards we expect these underprivileged children to rise to. Children in these poor areas are being compared to children in affluent areas where the quality of their education is much higher. Kozol asks how these children will succeed in today’s world if they are not given the same opportunities as affluent schools give their children. Kozol believes that by depriving our poorer children of their basic needs we are forcing them into lives of crime, poverty and a never-ending cycle of inequalities in education. Kozol stresses that these students must be taught that “savage inequalities” do not have to exist between them and students in more affluent schools, and that all children are entitled to an equal education.

In the essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal” by Jonathan Kozol, the situation of racial segregation is refurbished with the author’s beliefs that minorities (i.e. African Americans or Hispanics) are being placed in poor conditions while the Caucasian majority is obtaining mi32 the funding. Given this, the author speaks out on a personal viewpoint, coupled with self-gathered statistics, to present a heartfelt argument that statistics give credibility to. Jonathan Kozol is asking for a change in this harmful isolation of students, which would incorporate more funding towards these underdeveloped schools. This calling is directed towards his audience of individuals who are interested in the topic of public education (seeing that this

For my Argumentative Essay “Modern Day Re-Segregation in Today’s Schools”, I will be addressing Professor Kelly Bradford and my fellow students of Ivy Tech online English Composition 111-54H. As I chose Martin Luther King’s “Letter from A Birmingham Jail” as my core reading topic, I have gained an interest in not only the fight for civil rights that Mr. King lead in the 1950’s but have gotten interested in how there is still a large gap in equality in education due to the current situation of not only educational segregation but social and economic segregation. Through my research I have discovered that not only segregation in the schools is on the rise, but that socioeconomic segregation exists and is fueling the decrease in academic success by impoverished students. Through my writing I want to demonstrate that the socioeconomic isolation and segregation not only affects those that are directly bound by it, but that it affects every American in some form or other. I am submitting my writing as a formal academic manuscript.

The United States is a country based on equal opportunity; every citizen is to be given the same chance as another to succeed. This includes the government providing the opportunity of equal education to all children. All children are provided schools to attend. However, the quality of one school compared to another is undoubtedly unfair. Former teacher John Kozol, when being transferred to a new school, said, "The shock from going from one of the poorest schools to one of the wealthiest cannot be overstated (Kozol 2)." The education gap between higher and lower-income schools is obvious: therefore, the United States is making the effort to provide an equal education with questionable results.

In Jonathan Kozol “Still Separate Still Unequal” the author discusses how education for inner city school kids greatly differs from white school kids. “Schools that were already deeply segregated twenty-five or thirty years ago are no less segregated now” (Kozol 143). Although in 1954 the popular court case Brown vs Board of Education should have ended segregation in schools. The author shows how “the achievement gap between black and white children continues to widen or remain unchanged,” (Kozol 164) due to society’s grouping of privileges. Kozol relies heavily on logos to show how socio-economic privileges affects the education that inner city schools kids receive, those being blacks and Hispanics, compared to white schools kids.

    Towards the beginning of the book Kozol looks into segregation in the urban school system. He found that many schools that he visited it was interesting to found that segregation still happens all over the country but the amazing thing is the fact that it is not forced as it was in schools before the Brown vs Board of education case in 1954. The ironic thing is that Kozol found that schools named after people who wanted to end segregation are the ones that are majority minorities. He goes on to inform the audience on how the minority students have hardships in school such as limited resources and support from the education system. He found that better education is given if the family can pay for it. Expectantly,

Kozol doesn’t focus too much on the lifestyle or issues that take place in New York City because he claims that people have a general idea of what New York City consists of. Instead, he immediately discusses issues with the public school system in this city. Kozol visits a Public School 261, which is located next to a funeral home. This school is overpopulated, with the capacity being 900 students and their actual population of students being 1,300. The building itself has no windows, which Kozol claims makes the atmosphere uncomfortable and isolated. There are many issues with the building itself, such as the heating and cooling system. However, there are also issues with faculty being understaffed and students being over-populated. Kozol states that each student only gets 10 minutes a year with the one guidance counselor at this school. This limits student’s opportunities when it comes to furthering their education, finding a career, or even caring about their school. Students aren’t going to care about going to school if they know their school won’t notice if they are

Kozol uses these different techniques to strengthen his argument. The amount of imagery Kozol uses gives the readers a mental experience at what is being spoken, as if they were there. The audience sees this when Kozol argues how poorly public school system are in urban areas, “…. a stream of water flowed down one of the main stairwells on a rainy afternoon and where green fungus molds were growing in the office where the students went for counseling. A large blue barrel was positioned to collect rain-water coming through the ceiling.” (Kozol). In this quote, Kozol shares an experience when he pays a visit to a predominately black public school located in South Bronx. Kozol’s use of imagery is intended for the readers to feel for what he is saying, he wants his audience to vision this green mold so that an understanding of his view can be made, that public schools in these areas are in fact kept poorly. Although the use of imagery in Kozol article strengthens his argument, the use of tone he uses sets the mood for his article. Kozol wants to share his feelings with the audience in hope that the audience can feel the same way. Having said that, Kozol uses tone when he states “It is not fair that other kids have a garden and new things. But we don't have that," said Elizabeth. "I wish that this school was the most beautiful school in the whole why world"(Kozol). While reading this quote, one might feel sorrow for the situation that these kids are in. Kozol purposely aims to make the readers feel bad for these children, giving the readers an emotional connection within the article, thus making Kozol’s argument well-founded and persuasive. Lastly, the use of repetition Kozol uses is simply to make a point to the readers, when Kozol says “"You're ghetto," said Fortino, "so we send you to

Over the years, the students were subjected to a “string of substitute teachers” with no real structure to their learning or planning (p.7). Many of the substitute teachers were “grabbed off the street at seven-thirty,” and thrown into a classroom of kids who hated the unstructured learning. Students were unable to thrive in the learning conditions that were placed upon them, and slowly each student was working at below one or more grade levels; the blame for this is upon the school administrators for not placing qualified teachers in the classroom, and on the teachers themselves for not willing to believe they could change their student’s lives. As a consequence, this type of teaching, along with unorganized and unstructured learning, led to an “overall retardation” of most of the entire class. Along with overall retardation, many of the children were verbally ridiculed and put down; this led to Kozol’s underlying assumption: children who desperately want to learn, but are constantly told they cannot succeed, will eventually start to believe what the teachers are telling them is true, therefore killing the children’s

I feel that Kozol’s relationship with the people he showcased in his essay is one that showcases his willingness to expose the inequality he sees in our schooling system. This relationship works to his advantage as he constructs his argument because it allows him to take what he has seen and what he has learned from these people and turn it into something that catches your attention and makes you see the unfairness and the opportunities these kids have missed simply because of their color and their lack of resources. Kolov points out on page 350 and 351 that the kids themselves are aware that they “feel like they’re hidden,” and “wouldn’t be missed if they disappeared.” These kids feel this way because of what they see presented to them when

Confidence in the principle of universal equality of educational opportunity is difficult to maintain when one views the breadth of the educational landscape in America. When viewing two schools that fall on opposite sides of the spectrum in nearly every measurable aspect, it is crucial to make sense of where such disparity is founded so that the education system can be altered to better society. One such example of a tremendous educational gap is found in the 3.6 miles that span between the Nashville High Schools Pearl Cohn and Hume Fogg. Pearl Cohn, an entertainment magnet school located in a predominantly African American and poor socioeconomic area, has a 69% graduation rate, whereas Hume Fogg, an academic magnet school with 97% of students proficient in math and/or reading, has only 21% of students classified as economically disadvantaged (). Every similar and contrasting aspect between Pearl Cohn and Hume Fogg, overt and covert, can be viewed in the context the educational inequity birthed from Brown vs. Board and subsequent Brown II decision. Thus, by pairing observations of the two schools with the content discussed in Ogletree’s All Deliberate Speed, one can begin to make sense of the large discrepancies seen between the two schools, proof that society, the school and the teacher are interdependent.

Although there is no apartheid law in place in the United States, there are still schools that follow the same tradition. According to Tractenberg, Orfield, and Flaxman, “every major city examined by a federal court was found to have a long history of illegal public actions and decisions which fostered segregation”. As modern citizens, we should thrive for a diverse world in which our students are not segregated whether by the color of their skin or social economic status. Unfortunately, apartheid schools are prevalent in New Jersey which ranks 3rd in holding black students and 5th in holding Latinos in apartheid schools. Although apartheid schools make up 8% of all schools in New Jersey, they still hold 26% of black students and 13% of Latino’s. Most of apartheid schools are often in urban areas. In New Jersey, 12 districts that are 100% segregated from other cultures and social economic status are Essex which holds three, two in Hudson, and one each in Camden, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Passaic and Union.