Summary of Chapters on Education in the Community Essay

In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol describes the conditions of several of America's public schools. Kozol visited schools in neighborhoods and found that there was a wide disparity in the conditions between the schools in the poorest inner-city communities and schools in the wealthier suburban communities. How can there be such huge differences within the public school system of a country, which claims to provide equal opportunity for all? It becomes obvious to Kozol that many poor children begin their young lives with an education that is far inferior to that of the children who grow up in wealthier communities. Savage Inequalities provides strong evidence of the national

Introduction: As a well accomplished writer, activist, and educator, Jonathan Kozol has devoted his life to the challenge of providing equal education to every child in our public schools.

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

If anyone in the United States were asked, "What is the best part about living in this country?," most people would answer "equality". The United States is built on and known for the equality among its citizens and is often referred to as the 'melting pot'. After reading Jonathan Kozol's, The Shame of the Nation, equality is nonexistent within the schools he has gone to, and has been employed through. With his travels, expert testimony and personal stories gathered from the people within the community and schools, he shows the exact opposite of equality. Minority schools being his main focus, he discusses the inequalities these students endure and truly opens up your eyes to just how awful these minority schools have it. Jonathan Kozol is successful in his writing of The Shame of the Nation, and makes himself a voice for these minority schools that are denied of their voices.

He discusses the school system in Anacostia, which is a school district in D.C., and is very similar to the schools previously mentioned. The cafeteria is in a basement, which is often flooded and has rats. Many of the school children, as young as 8 years old, work for drug dealers from New York City. The young girls who go to school here usually end up pregnant and single because the young men either die early, get arrested, or join the military as a way out of the neighborhood. Kozol uses these poor neighborhoods to describe what he calls the “foundation program”. He simplifies it into three basic parts to describe how these schools end up getting money. First, local taxes are the basic funding for public schools. These are taxes placed on homes in the surrounding area of a school district. Second, the wealthy districts have minimal taxation but still have adequate school systems. Meanwhile, less affluent school districts have much higher taxes to make up for property values but still have inadequate school systems. Lastly, the state provides enough funds for poor districts to have the same standards as wealthier neighborhoods. However, the foundation program doesn’t always work because sometimes the lines get blurred on who gets what money and

In this detailed and shocking book, Jonathan Kozol describes the horrific and unjust conditions in which many children in today’s society are forced to get their education. Kozol discusses three major reasons for the discrepancies in America’s schools today: disparities of property taxes, racism, and the conflict between state and local control. The first of these reasons is that of the differences of available property tax revenues. Kozol discusses the inconsistencies in property tax revenues and the problem that the poorer districts aren’t getting the same opportunities for education as the more affluent neighborhoods. He says the reason for this is that the

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.

I am aware that there are better and worse high schools out there than Fremont High School. And yet, reading Kozol's account of the terrible conditions that are endured by these students made me feel more aware of the severity of improper or inadequate education that poorly funded schools provide. All of these problems, alongside my awareness of my fortunate years of education, make me wonder, just as Mireya did, as to why, "...[students] who need it so much more get so much less?" (Kozol 648). Interestingly, I have little to comment on Kozol's actual writing style, even though he wrote this account of his. I was just so attached to the characters within that school that I wanted to be able to reach out somehow; Kozol definitely achieved something very touching here.

America is the nation in which everyone from all over the world come to get the best possible life and prosper and one of the main things is Education.There are many kids and adults going to school to further their careers.The education system in the U.S has many challenges including the neighborhood in which the student resides in,teachers,and the money.From watching Waiting for’’ Superman’’,these three factors weigh in to what the student’s existence will be in the future and the barriers they will have to face to get to the top.

Kozol shares his experiences with students and teachers while visiting Fremont High School in Los Angeles, California. From the beginning, Kozol set the mood for the piece by describing the lackluster conditions of the buildings. He described the lack of sufficient classroom space by saying that "nearly a third of all the classrooms in the school, were located in portables took place in converted storage closets" (Kozol 641). He then begins giving descriptions of the atmosphere and explains how the school is over crowded being that there are so many children and not enough teachers and bathrooms for all students to access. Kozol states that the average ninth grader reads at a fourth or fifth grade level which proves that students also have many difficulties in school. Beyond learning there are many other reasons why it is hard for students to obtain the proper education.

Moreover, the advancement in technologies causes higher requirements for education and training for potential employees, and the lack of education in the inner cities cause the residents to fall short of these requirements. Wilson speaks about the lack of motivation the teachers have to teach their students will great enthusiasm, the lack of skills the teachers had, and the overcrowding of schools. A woman gave details on how her daughter isn’t going to a public school because since they don’t get the amount of money a private school makes, the teachers do not care and the schools are overcrowded. There are also no schools that give the specific training that particular jobs require from their employers.

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.

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

According to Healthy People 2020 a goal of theirs is to “increase immunization rates and reduce preventable infections.” The influenza virus is one of these preventable infections, which can cause serious harm to patients. The influenza virus is known as the “flu.” Everyone in his or her life has had some experience with the flu, whether that is himself or herself or a family member. What if there was a way to ensure people from contracting a strain of the influenza virus? Well, thanks to technology and medical research there is.

Education is a quality in which all learning should be given under unconditional pretenses. The opportunity to be privileged with higher learning and creative diversities places an extraordinary value in which all children should achieve. However, when economic and ethnic demographics supersedes integrity, equality, fairness, and entailing security for all students. The modern issues of the urban education confronts our society with alarming facts that students are failing not only under the umbrella of the schools but it stunts their ability to see themselves successful in their future. Varying economic statuses can significantly impact the dynamic between students and teachers, and may detract from the learning environment. Economic status affects how students interact with one another, learn concepts, develop intellectually and relate to authority figures of urban educations. Many economic factors converge to create this vicious cycle of urban educational decline, and the downward spiral of solutions due to the lack of funding.