Why Is Jonathan Kozol Still Separate Still Unequal

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.

The book, Inequality in the Promised Land: Race, Resources, and Suburban Schooling, tells us about the problems that inner-city students face in schools across America. There is an apparent problem with discrimination towards black and poorer families within some suburban districts. The effect of this is a vicious cycle of limited/ scare resources of educational opportunities for students. Author, Lewis-McCoy examines a suburban area in which a “promised land” of educational opportunities and beneficial resources has failed to live up to it’s name. America’s suburbs are seeing an increase in diverse families, yet there is still a challenge of giving equal and high quality educational opportunities to them.

“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

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

Kozol argues that there is a “deterioration of classroom conditions and teaching practices” and that there are lines drawn by race deciding who gets a better education. He establishes ethos by giving specific examples and numbers to prove that he has researched what he is talking about and has the knowledge to report on this topic. He gives statistics of the racial profile of schools, in which the poorer, dirty, ill-supplied, and lower teaching standards had the majority of blacks and hispanics in their school system compared to the nicer schools with their students being predominantly white. He states that there are no words to express how “deeply isolated children in the poorest and most segregated sections of these cities have become” (Rereading America

In fear of the deteriorating value of education materials to support the appropriate grade levels, white families flee the public school system to magnet or private school for higher enrichment. Meanwhile, suburban legislators and Governor Thompson agree that “we can’t keep throwing money into a black hole” (Kozol, 1988, p. 53). Ultimately, the education at public schools were thrown aside at the cost of enriching the lives of students in affluent schools. Within the two districts I researched, Dallas ISD and Highland Park ISD, I found that the gathered median income from Highland Park is four times that of Dallas ISD. Because of this, Dallas ISD students are forced to rely on the limited sources of educational materials which are reflected by the substantially different median income compared to Highland ISD. Additionally, racial divide amongst the two ISD’s is astonishing. In Dallas ISD’s only 5.1% of the student body is identified as white but Highland Park is 85.8%. Meanwhile, the other ethnicities for the two school districts have the percentages swapped. Having Highland ISD’s black, Latino/Hispanic, Asian, or Pacific ethnicities just below the 15% margin and Dallas ISD’s non-white ethnicities soaring above 94%, the clear distinction of racial inequality among these two districts are evident. Comparing these percentages aligns to Kozol’s evaluation of white overpopulation in affluent schools within different districts such as Highland ISD.

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

Kozol acts as if segregation is the problem when in fact it could be perfectly fine. All the inner city kids need is the right tools. But I believe that even if they have all of the proper materials and instruments after having generations of dropouts and acceptance of failure there will not be an overnight change. What the people in those area have as a way of life and education is all that they know so change is difficult to achieve. As for teachers while they may not like the challenges of working in those schools there are perks. As i have learned through my mom who is a teacher when she looked for jobs, the jobs in those types of schools offers the teachers more money to work there since not many want to. Most of the inner city schools are considered title one or high need schools meaning that the teachers who work there get their student loans paid off by the government just for working there. If those schools were to disappear or merge with schools doing better off it can have catastrophic results of the teachers of inner cities getting laid off or lose money by being transferred into a “better” school. The students at the better schools performances might drop due to being mixed with lower academically capable students who has not been raised in the same environment of school being a top priority and being told to go

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.

The novel Ordinary Resurrections, written by Jonathan Kozol, focuses on an area in south New York called the Bronx, which is a poor community composed of mainly African-American and Hispanic people. The author, Jonathan Kozol, focuses the novel specifically on the children who live in a section of the South Bronx called Mott Haven, which is America’s “epicenter for the plague of pediatric and maternal AIDS” (Kozol 3) and is “one of the centers of an epidemic of adult and pediatric asthma.” (Kozol 3). The people of Mott Haven do not have sufficient access to healthcare, live in extreme poverty, and are malnourished.

As I learn more about the realities of education, there was one issue that sparked my interest and passion – segregation. Though it is difficult to see first-hand, I can definitely see remnants of segregation through comparison of resources available at schools I’ve worked at. My belief that education serves as an accessible tool for social mobility led me to explore the issue of segregation with the perspective of a future educator. Over 50 years ago in the Brown v. Board of Education case, the Supreme Court deemed that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. With this in mind, I was under the impression that schools were not segregated (at least to a far lesser extent). However, I was shocked to learn that segregation in schools

Many minority groups suffer from the effects of low quality school systems, which in many cases is a directly associated to polarization of the suburbs and the inner city. Suburbanization has changed many of the core qualities of the inner cities infrastructure. Particularly, depopulizaton and job removal are two factors that have been negatively impacted by the rise of satellite communities. It is quite apparent that schools within the city tend to be of lower status or quality than those positioned in suburban community. Consequently, this mere fact could be ultimately a result of insufficient funding. The question that is of interest is how minority groups, specifically African Americans, have been affected by the rise of suburban communities

While racial segregation has decreased in the past years, economic segregation has most definitely increased. Racial differences between groups are what creates segregation and is an important barrier to black social and economic upward mobility. As Lareau discussed in her article “Invisible Inequality: Social class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families”, living in a poor area often means living in an environment full of unhealthy situations and violence, providing poor learning opportunities and economic opportunities. These negative forces begin even before birth. Children in affluent families receive more exposure to reading and less exposure to environment hazards. Their families can afford enriching experiences such as music lessons. They receive better resources including nutrition and health care, which enhance their learning, directly and indirectly (Lareau 2002). As a large portion of these children tend to be within white families, we again see the higher educational opportunities that are presented to whites as opposed to blacks and subsequently, to the persistent racial differences in economic