Still Separate Still Unequal Summary

In Jonathon Kozol’s excerpt, Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, Kozol explains that public policy leaders and the school system need to work together in harmony to create policies and programs that specifically allow for underprivileged students to succeed. In the opening few paragraphs Kozol’s excerpt, Shame of the Nation, Kozol shared some of the letters he received from children who came from ghetto schools. These letters were comprised of how students in elementary school saw their school and how different it was from others. Specifically, white students. These letters as well explained that their school was lacking the things that made the school beautiful. For example, not having a garden or a playground

Many education writers have much to say about the education-taking place in our public schools, as well as Kozol. For Instance Diane Ravitch a research professor of education at New York University spoke about an interesting truth, saying, “The achievement gaps are rooted in social, political, and economic structures. If we are unwilling to change the root cause, we are unlikely ever to close the gaps.” The success of our children’s education is mainly caused by economic, social and political statue. If one does not end the cycle the gap will most likely never close. This may tie in with when Kozol cites Marina Warner, an essayist and novelist, saying, “There are expensive children and there

Education is important as we develop a society of lifelong learners, but budget cuts for schools should not be at the expense of art programs. All students have unique learning styles and ways they best absorb information. To compromise that process is destructive to the success of their overall learning experience. “The Sanctuary of School” makes the reader aware of the many individuals who go through the public-school system. Barry’s essay advocates the need for funding of art programs and the supportive, creative outlets they

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.

This demonstrates that if Sam’s school had got more funding then Sam may have received a proper education, and would have learned the intellectual skills that could help him to obtain a high paying job. Unlike many other people in richer parts of America who are able to achieve a lot in life due to their education, Sam’s lack of wealth ruins his future. Another example is one that hits closer to home- in terms of educational funding, the Illinois system is corrupt, and one of the districts that suffers most is that of Chicago Public Schools. In an interview with Ryan Young from CNN and an anonymous Chicago Public School teacher over the recent strike over budget cuts and the overall lack in school funding, the teacher states, “We care about the students. We want funding for our schools so our children can have supplies… gym, art, and PE., just like the kids in the suburbs do.” This is a direct representation of what is occurring in the Chicago Public School system today as a consequence of budget cuts and unequal funding. In general, the lack of school funding gives poorer children disadvantages when it comes to supplies that can help them to thrive. Also, budget cuts weaken the capacity of schools’ to develop the intelligence and creativity of the next generation of workers. In fact,, funding cuts lessen the ability of the schools to help prepare children better for their future, such as improving teacher

In “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, Jonathan Kozol, a teacher, author, and educational activist and social reformer argued that “American schools today might be more segregated than at any time since 1954…[which] threatens an entire generation of Americans”(Rereading American book). “Still Separate, Still Unequal” was affected by the author’s life, works, and purpose in that his thoughts are biased based on his experiences as an inner-city elementary school teacher and work with poor children and their families and was persuasive for an audience of American citizens. The view Kozol had on this topic of the “resegregation” of schools in America is explained and written as a negative look on the American education system.

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.

Jonathan Kozol, in the chapter entitled “Other People’s Children, discusses and justifies the kinds of limitations placed on children who must attend poorly funded, educationally inferior school. Kozol argues that children in the inner-city schools are not fit to go to college and that they should be trained in schools for the jobs they will eventually hold, even though these jobs are less prestigious, lowest-level jobs in society. Kozol’s argument is based on the fact that students from the inner-city or rather from the societies that do not have enough job opportunities are not supposed to learn much because their society cannot accommodate most of the courses that are often found in the urban settings. For example, there is a point where Kozol cites one of the businessman’s statement which says, ‘It doesn’t make sense to offer something that most of these urban kids will never use.’ The businessman continues to argue, ‘no one expects these ghetto kids to go to college. Most of them are lucky if they are literate. If we can teach some useful skills, get them to stay in school and graduate, and maybe into jobs, we’re giving them the most that they can hope for’ (Kozol 376). This statement clearly indicate that the society should accept the inequalities and exercise the same inequalities even in education.

For my entire life of schooling, both my parents and I would agree that I constantly complained about the educational systems in which I was enrolled. But when I actually take the time to think about everything I have been through, I realize that I have indeed had an excellent education. My schooling was full of opportunities and experiences, all of which contributed to the person I am today; adequate education has been an indispensable facet of my being. Sadly, not everyone has had this same privilege. And now as a college student, I am becoming even more aware of this sad fact. Looking around me in such a diverse city as Chicago, I find myself being more and more grateful. When I read Jonathan Kozol's Fremont High School, this these

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

The article, “Still Separate, Still Unequal” by Jonathan Kozol, is basically about how the school system of today is still separated and still unequal according to those with different skin color or race. Even though the court case ‘Brown v. Board of Education’, intentionally was made to fix this problem, everything stayed the same. Kozol’s argument was to prove that the school systems are separated and unequal for students based on their race or the color of their skin. He proved his point by using many facts to help explain that there are many cities and areas within the school system that are unequal and separated. The use of pure facts instead of personal opinions makes this issue seem like a real problem instead of a one man’s opinion.

Policy makers focus on high test scores to help to fund the schools, not focusing on teaching how the succeeding generation should expand their knowledge and continue to reach for a higher education. Schools focus on reading and mathematics, but the “...educated consumers of schooling want their students to have a full, balanced, and rich curriculum.” These affluent parents want their children to have a more diverse education, including the arts and extracurricular activities. Although this is in more affluent schools, poorer schools are forced into only focusing on the core classes that are required by state for standardized testing since they do not have the resources to do otherwise. In the article, “Still Separate, Still Unequal,” Kozol reads a letter from a student in a poor school, wishing Kozol could “make her school into a ‘good’ school-- ‘like the other kings have’”

Educators require just "books, a board, and a couple of legs that will last the day," Marva Collins told Dan Hurley in 50 Plus magazine. These three things were basically all that Collins had when she opened the Westside Preparatory School in Chicago, Illinois, in 1975 with the $5,000 she had added to her benefits subsidize. Frustrated in the wake of instructing in the state funded educational system for a long time, Collins chose to leave and open a school that would welcome understudies who had been dismisses by different schools and marked problematic and "closed off." She had seen an excessive number of kids go through an insufficient educational system in which they were given indifferent instructors, some of whom came to class artificially debilitated.

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

This book will discuss how schools do not trust themselves enough, now they rely on standardized tests with standardize curriculum based lessons by the United States for our misguided trust. Meier believes that the schools must win back their faith in our educational system by showing what teachers are capable of. With that being said make the teachers challenge by making the comparison between schools that rely upon standardized tests, versus small, self- governed schools. Meier focuses on her theory that schools thrives when classes are smaller, personal, and when parents