Still Separate, Still Unequal By Jonathan Kozol

Epstein, K. K. (2006). A different view of urban schools: Civil rights, critical race theory,

In his essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid,” Jonathan Kozol brings our attention to the apparent growing trend of racial segregation within America’s urban and inner-city schools (309-310). Kozol provides several supporting factors to his claim stemming from his research and observations of different school environments, its teachers and students, and personal conversations with those teachers and students.

Pedro Noguera, a phenomenal urban sociologist and a professor at New York University confronts the problems which exist in our nation’s education system in his book, City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education. Noguera describes what he views to be the main problems facing urban education and suggests strategies for improvement. From years of experience as a teacher and school board member, he reflects on what he believes to be the real problems. Noguera blames the school’s failures on students, parents, and teachers which leads to blame local government officials or policymakers. Noguera states in City Schools and the American Dream, “The central argument of this book is that until there is a genuine commitment to address the social context of schooling — to confront the urban condition — it will be impossible to bring about significant and sustainable improvements in urban public schools” (pg.6). Noguera believes that we must address the central problem to make any type of solutions for improvement.

“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 comments that, “nearly forty years after Brown vs. the Board of Education many of are schools are still separate but no longer even remotely equal.”

Although the statistics are more than 10 years out of date, the reality of America school segregation has not changed. The barely functional buildings, lack of up to date text books (or in many cases any text books), overcrowded classes, non-existent lab and computer equipment, and low paid teachers create a situation of despair that leads to a drop out rate of more than 50% in many districts. And even those who graduate are often barely literate. Kozol draws the clear link between these schools and the imprisonment of the oppressed nations who, after dropping out of a dead end education, end up locked behind bars.

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

Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol explains the inequalities of school systems in different poor neighborhoods. Kozol was originally a teacher in a public school in Boston. This school didn’t have very many resources and was unable to keep teachers for very long. After pursuing other interests, Kozol took the time from 1988-1990 to meet with children and teachers in several different neighborhoods to better understand issues relating to the inequality and segregation in the school systems. Kozol writes from his own perspective as he visits six different cities and the poorest schools in those cities. These cities consist of East St. Louis in Illinois, the South Side of Chicago in Illinois, New York City, Camden in New Jersey, Washington

One of the most, if not the most, controversial and heated debates following the United States independence was regarding the institution of slavery. In the introduction to his book Half Slave and Half Free, Bruce Levine quotes Carl Schurzs’ observation as the “slave question not being a mere occasional quarrel between two sections of the country divided by a geographic line, but a great struggle between two antagonistic systems of social organization (p.15)”. The Nouthern states that allowed slavery benefited from the agricultural labor that those slaves provided. The Northern states that prohibited slavery did so for moral and pragmatic reasons; they felt it was morally wrong to deny another human any form of rights, and did not like the economic advantage it gave to the Southern states. With the use of slavery largely concentrated in the South, the movement against it came from the North and was led by abolitionists; those who were committed to bringing an end to the practice. In this course we have defined “Practice” as the conduct of policy, such as opinion, election, parties and law-making (Lecture). We define Policy as the goals of politics, those being sovereignty, defense, and a collective well-being (Lecture). The following analytical essay will examine antislavery sentiment and practices in the Northern states and the reaction of Southern states. Additionally how the pressures from both sides influenced the Policy of the United States following independence then

The author makes a compelling argument of “academic apartheid” happening in an affluent suburb of Southern California’s school district that produces and reproduces inequality between schools. Drawing from extensive ethnographic data, the author argues that a high-prestige comprehensive high school uses a continuation school in the same school district as a “dumping ground” of underperforming students—who are disproportionately black and Latino and/or socioeconomically disadvantaged compared to the overall student profile of the school district—as a way to maintain their institutional prestige and “success frame.” Since the curricula offered at the two schools are also starkly different—one offering honors and advanced placement courses designed to help students enroll in (prestigious) 4-year universities upon graduation while the other does not offer any plausible paths to 4-year university enrollment for its students—the author argues that students at these two high schools experience separate and unequal—thus, apartheid-like—schooling.

The segregation system within our laws were thought to be hindered after the Civil Rights era, but finds itself to be subtly instilled in modern times.Students coming from poor families are given less opportunities than those who are privileged and wealthy. Many aren’t given access to schools with stable funding in their education departments. There is a clear division between the rich and poor students within the school systems throughout different cities. In A 'Bleak' Portrait of America's Urban Public School System, author Tanvi Misra says, “in a majority of the 50 cities, low-income and minority students were less likely to attend high-performing elementary and middle schools, take advanced classes, and take the ACT or SAT tests than higher

The author makes a compelling argument of “academic apartheid” happening in an affluent suburb of Southern California’s school district that produces and reproduces inequality between schools. Drawing from extensive ethnographic data, the author argues that a high-prestige comprehensive high school uses a continuation school in the same school district as a “dumping ground” of underperforming students—who are disproportionately black and Latino and/or socioeconomically disadvantaged compared to the overall student profile of the school district—as a way to maintain their institutional prestige and “success frame.” Since the curricula offered at the two schools are also starkly different—one offering honors and advanced placement courses designed to help students enroll in (prestigious) 4-year universities upon graduation while the other does not offer any plausible paths to 4-year university enrollment for its students—the author argues that students at these two high schools experience separate and unequal—thus, apartheid-like—schooling.

The persistence of segregation [in schools] is a problem because, today as in the Brown era, separate schools are unequal. "Schools of concentrated poverty and segregated minority schools are strongly related to an array of factors that limit educational opportunities and outcomes," wrote the authors of a 2012 report by the University of California–Los Angeles's Civil Rights Project. "These include less experienced and less qualified teachers, high levels of teacher turnover, less successful peer groups and inadequate facilities and learning materials." (Barkhorn 2013).

This generation parents are more accustom to separation before the divorce. “Separating” written by, John Updike, is a short story about the parents, Richard and Joan, were deciding on what was the best way to tell their children that they have decided to separate. The parents acknowledged that it was best to tell the children individually. By breaking the news to one child at a time the child will be more focus on what the parents are saying. The two girls took it well, but boys did not take it that well. Before my parents told me that they are going to get a separation, I knew it was coming. I have noticed that were not happy; they argued on regular basis. Some children are observant and know that their parents are on the path

“Although education is often promoted as a pathway out of poverty, American educational disparities are such that the families with the greatest need are often relegated to the least adequate educational resources (Sue & Sue, 2013). 60 years after de jure segregation was outlawed, schools are almost as segregated as they were before desegregation (Hannah-Jones, 2014). “Such segregation is sometimes called