Separate And Unequal: Video Analysis

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.

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

In her article on school segregation, Hannah-Jones describes how the school district which Ferguson resident Michael Brown graduated from, ranked last in overall performance for Missouri schools. The death of Michael Brown in August 2014 spurred riots not only in St. Louis, but also in other cities nationwide. Hannah-Jones states how many St. Louis area school districts have “returned to the world of separate and unequal”, which was widespread before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. Black and white children in the St. Louis region are educationally divided,

In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as part of his “war on poverty” in hopes of closing the achievement gap between low income schools, which typically house larger percentages of student of color, and their more affluent counterparts. The act has been redefined and reauthorized every five years since its original enactment. However, despite the last 50 years of education reform, the disparity amongst high and low poverty schools is as large as it ever was. In turn, the disparity between students of color and white students has only grown. Clearly, the one size fits all approach to education America has been using does not work. The U.S public education system is broken and, as a country, very

In the week's reading it offered a unique perspective education of segregated school by the percentage of black and hispanic students. The arguments that can be mafe about the myth of educations and empowerment in the reading "Still Separate, Still Unequal" by Jonathan Kozol, is still being affected by funds. The author speaks about statistics present the overpopulated schools are filled with minorities. "Whether the issue is inequity alone or deepening resegregation or the labyrinthine intertwining of the two, it is well past the time for us to start the work that it will take to change this." "We do not have the things you have," Alliyah told me when she wrote to ask if I would come and visit her school in the South Bronx. "Can you help us?"

The essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, by Jonathan Kozol, discusses the harsh truth of public school systems, and how they have become an isolation and segregation of inequality that students are subjected to; as a result, to receive an education. Throughout the essay, Kozol proves evidence of the inequality that African American and Hispanic children face in the current school systems across the country. Kozol supports his testimony by providing the reader with factual statistics and percentages, of how segregated the public school systems have become within many major cities. He exposes the details and statistic of how wealthier schools received better funding and opportunity than the low-income and poverty struck school systems throughout the major cities across the country.

What stood out for me in the video is that members of Baton Rouge wants to make a new school system by establishing a new city. Their purpose for a new school is to have less racially an economic diverse. The community believes that Baton Rouge schools are being violent and are unmanaged. The community members want smaller and centered schools for white students .Therefore, segregation is based on race and class lines .As a result, the community members believe that East Baton schools are only babysitting and not disciplining their students. Therefore, there are many violent acts that’s shows that children are not getting along for example, teenagers are uploading violent videos in media in order to show

In the documentary by Kyle Spencer, Separate and Unequal, illuminates a public education crisis in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The middle class has gathered together to attempt to create a separate public school district within the city. The district will be 70% Caucasian and be less economical diverse. Lionel Rainey, the spoke person for St George states “We’ve had enough of failing our children. We’re not going to do it anymore, and we’ll go to the length of creating our own city to create our own education system, to take control back from the status quo.”

How to minimize the hurts of non-white children once their belief on the theory of a society is fair and equality is completely collapsed when the reality is happening in the opposite. In the reading “Why the Myth of Meritocracy Hurts Kids of Color” Mildred Boveda, an assistant education professor at Arizona State University, said: “I will admit that it sometimes felt risky to tackle these difficult conversations, but this [research] underscores why we cannot equivocate when it comes to preparing our children to face injustices.” I agree with her opinion. Because finding the proper solutions to fully empower and equipping the best knowledge that can help children cope better is not easy, but it is the responsibility of the family, the school, and society. The three elements need to act and work together in an effort to dare to speak about the truths mentioned above.

Two articles, The Facts about the Achievement Gap by Diane Ravitch and From Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid by Jonathan Kozol, provide facts about the crumbling education system in the inner cities of America. Schools there have shown to be segregated, poorly staffed, and underfunded. While the theme of both articles may be educational shortcomings, the content is surrounded by discussions of segregation. There are more underlying factors the authors are missing. Readers need to be rallied together in a unilateral cause to identify the issues affecting the nation’s education system, segregation is not one of them.

After reading the text I decided to analyze Still Separate, Still Unequal by Johnathan Kozol. His call to action at the end of the article drives his point: just because we have laws set that says we are no longer segregated and that we should all be treated equally, does not mean that it is true. Different cultures are still treated unequally as proven by Kozol’s research into schooling in lower income areas. He trys to prove that even though Americans do not forcefully separate blacks and whites anymore, they get separated on their own. They get separated by class and location leaving schools with majority of Hispanics and blacks and sometimes only one percent white. Kozol wants the change that Brown v. Board of Education started.

The social problem shown in the video Separate and Unequal is poverty and racism. This video focuses specifically on Jackson, Mississippi. This video takes a look at Lanier High School and some of the student’s experiences and difficulties in this school due to poverty in this town. Jackson Mississippi is 70% black and Lanier High School is 100% black students. Everything started to go downhill for this community after integration occurred. Black students left their school and went to a more diverse school. But no one chose to come to Lanier High School or Jackson due to how run down the community and school was. Therefore the community only suffered. Manuel is a student at Lanier High School. He does not have a father figure and his mother is not in good condition due to her stroke, so he has to take care of her. He struggles in school with his grades and authority from the teachers. He plays on the basketball team but always fights with his coach because he is not used to male authority. He is kicked off of the team and ends up failing tenth grade. He then roams the streets with his buddies and his mom is very worried he’ll end up in jail or even worse, death. He is a prime example of how poverty in his family and community affect him directly. Alicia is a teen mom at Lanier High School. She is raising her baby with the help of her mother because the father is in jail. She struggles in school due to providing for her baby and ends up dropping out. She continues to try to

In addition to fulfilling the learning objectives that required my proficiency in online and campus services, the growth I attained through our readings and discussions became (although trite) my new educational foundations from which I deconstructed and/or reconstructed a reality aspiring to be bias-free. Starting from Adrienne Rich’s “Claiming an Education” where I became enraged by female oppression and exposed devolusive reality that despite this speech being near 40 years old, it still upholds presently. My dispassion for endemic public discourse continued immensely when reading Jean Anyon’s “ Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum Work” and Jonothan Kozol’s “Other People’s Children” that assisted perfectly with my Urban Youth course’s concurrent analysis and conceptualization of the school-to-prison pipeline. Both Anyon and Kozol, invited me to witness shameless discrimination, negligence and social stratification plaguing U.S education. This ideal of equal opportunity to quality education has exceeded my vain plight grappling with my white privilege by double, which I know will only continue to challenge every fiber of my being as these issues remain neglected ergo persistent. ‘Ed. Found’ reading of Henry Giroux’s interview “The Hope of Radical Education” also meshed with my

When I hear the term inequality I think back to when blacks were being segregated by the whites. I would define inequality as different ethnic groups receiving different treatment than other groups do. For example, the Jim Crow laws restricted African-Americans. The video aligned with my earlier answer in some ways, like the race segment of the video,and sometimes if you are a different race you are offered lower education and health care. Also, the video went beyond race and went to gender and how women are sometimes treated unequally in businesses. The video also went into the inequality of the upper, middle, and lower class of society and how the higher you get the quality of education, health care, and services goes up. I think that the