St. Louis Case Study

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.

America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s

Ultimately the lack of reliable resources and preparation from underfunded schools leads African American students into being unprepared for college and jobs, once again reinforcing a vicious cycle of poverty within the community. Gillian B. White, a senior associate editor at The Atlantic, wrote a chilling article regarding the systematic racism that is deeply embedded in the American school system. In the article The Data: Race Influences School Funding, White states “At a given poverty level, districts that have a higher proportion of white students get substantially higher funding than districts that have more minority students” (White). In this quote White explains the clear correlation of race and inadequate funding in the American school

For generations African Americans have been disadvantaged in America and effects of these injustices have made a lasting impression. Education is one of the leading problems in the black community. Though there have many reforms in education over the years, racial injustices still exist because no attention in placed on how legislature affects people of color. I was raised in a middle-class family of educators. My entire life I’ve been told to “stay in school, get an education, and work hard so that you can beat the system.” Recognizing the structural forces in my life has helped me understand my place in society. Being able to “understand everyday life, not through personal circumstances but through the broader historical forces that

In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol documents the troubling inequalities within American public school systems and their various districts. Thus focusing on the “savage inequalities” between highly privileged districts and poor districts within these public school systems. From the time period of 1988 to 1990, Jonathan Kozol visited various public schools in multiple neighborhoods, including East St. Louis, the Bronx, Chicago, Harlem, Jersey City, and San Antonio. Throughout the chapters, Kozol describes horrendous conditions within these schools and questions the students, faculty, and staff members regarding their reflection of the current school’s maintenance, teachers’ salary and availability, and student’s deteriorating curriculum.

The essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, written by Jonathan Kozol, discusses the actuality of intercity public school systems, and the isolation and segregation of inequality that students must be subjected to in order to receive an education. 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. Jonathan Kozol brings our attention to the obvious growing trend of racial segregation within America’s urban and inner city schools. He creates logical support by providing frightening statistics to his claims stemming from his research and observations of different school environments. He also provides emotional support by sharing the stories and experiences of the teachers and students. His credibility is established by the author of Rereading America by providing us with his collegiate background. This is also created from his continual involvement with isolated and segregated educational school systems and keeps tone sincerity throughout his essay. Within the essay, Still Separate, Still Unequal, Jonathan Kozol’s argument is

In this exposition "From Still Separate, Still Unequal: America 's Educational Apartheid," the writer, Jonathan Kozol, constructs his paper in light of the meetings and perception that he had with a large number of the still racially isolated schools in America and his own thoughts about the circumstances. In the initial few areas of his article, Kozol focuses on the racial issue that he saw with a large portion of the public schools that he visited, for example, the government-funded schools in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and so on. More than ninety percent of the students being selected in those schools are African American, Hispanic, and students of another race. Different schools that are named after extraordinary individuals, for example, MLK and Thurgood Marshall, are racially isolated schools also.

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.

Founded in 1764, St. Louis Missouri is home to many diverse groups, businesses, and corporations. Post American Civil War, local immigration and industrialization contributed to increasing populations. In terms of racial demographics, the majority ethnic backgrounds in St. Louis approximately include Whites, African Americans/Blacks, Latinos/Hispanics, and Asians. Similar to NYC, immigrants and refugees of war settled in St. Louis and created their own subculture. In the early 1990’s after the Bosnian War, more than forty thousand refugees arrived and established St. Louis as the largest Bosnian community aside from their home country of course.

Frontlines video “Separate and Unequal” brings up two differing sides to an on growing concern within Baton Rouge. Both sides have one common goal and that is to better the education of their own children. However, with this mutual desire comes conflict with both parties due to the fact that some parents believe that their child is not receiving the best education they can get and thus limiting their child’s future. Frontline though does not choose to focus on this important issue throughout the video and instead alters the situation so it becomes a racial conflict instead.

She essentially claims that fifty years after the arduous success of the Civil Rights Movement, social class has widened the gap propelled by racial division that had slowly began to correct itself in the American society. Garland also presents statistical information generated by prominent universities throughout the United States, and reflects such data through the example of two socio-economically and racially different families and the extent to which their earnings can enlighten the path of their children, representing the low and high ends of the income spectrum. As one of her final points, she analyses possible solutions revolving around the process of closing the gap preventing low-income children from merging with high-income children and the opportunities that the latter are privileged with, mentioning the lack of political activism and social consciousness towards the magnitude of such conflict affecting both parents and children’s expectations of learning and

I spent hours creating supplemental lesson plans to help students get on track academically, only to arrive at the school and find out that my assigned student was absent. It was not uncommon for students to be absent from school because they had missed the bus and their family did not have an alternate mode of transportation. For students receiving speech therapy, chronic absences put them at a disadvantage for having access to services that were crucial to their educational success. I found myself feeling defeated and frustrated that I wasn’t able to help these children overcome their educational challenges. But it was while volunteering at these schools that I became intrigued with understanding the way in which factors such as socioeconomic status, race, and gender interact and contribute to children’s access to education. This piqued interest coincided with my deepening involvement in She’s The First, and from the union of these experiences emerged my desire to help marginalized children and particularly marginalized groups of of girls on a global

Poor quality of education poses the greatest threat at this period of time in American history. In today’s society, black public schools lack enough resources for students to become aware of their own history. Money, books, overcrowded classrooms and unmotivated teachers are all the things that can negatively affect the quality of education. This type of environment for urban public schools has been around for decades, versus the more high achieving suburban schools which are often considered private schools.

Education also instills empathy, accountability, freedom, purpose, power, and democratic values in individuals. This is not always the case in urban education. “The entire system of urban education is failing youth of color by any number of criteria, the structure of the traditional urban school privileges poor teaching practices, these practices trigger responses from students that reflect “poor behavior,” the poor behavior triggers deeply entrenched biases that teachers hold, and when this triggering of biases is coupled with the cycling in and out of white folks to teach in the hood, former teachers with activated biases leave urban classrooms to become policymakers and education experts who do not believe in young people or their communities.” This creates a cycle where only “some individuals from oppressed groups do manage to succeed academically despite the limited probability of their doing so.” The key to getting students to be academically successful “is not to teach directly to the assessment or to the curriculum, but to teach directly to the students.”