In "Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Educational Apartheid," Jonathan Kozol addresses the deafening issues that urban public schools in America remain segregated, underserved, and their respective state unrecognized. Kozol was apprised of the tragedy via the study of unconscionable statistics on the actuality of non-diverse schools. He determined that an inordinate number of elementary schools continue to be segregated by race; regardless of the complexion of the area in which they reside. Numerous studies identify that many blacks are still living in poverty or in lower income neighborhoods. Consequently, the location of schools has a profound effect on the quality of the student’s education. Funding is directly affected by the affluency
Savage Inequalities, written by Jonathan Kozol, shows his two-year investigation into the neighborhoods and schools of the privileged and disadvantaged. Kozol shows disparities in educational expenditures between suburban and urban schools. He also shows how this matter affects children that have few or no books at all and are located in bad neighborhoods. You can draw conclusions about the urban schools in comparison to the suburban ones and it would be completely correct. The differences between a quality education and different races are analyzed. Kozol even goes as far as suggesting that suburban schools have better use for their money because the children's futures are more secure in a suburban setting. He thinks that each child should receive as much as they need in order to be equal with everyone else. If children in Detroit have greater needs than a student in Ann Arbor, then the students in Detroit should receive a greater amount of money.
Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol is an account of his travels to East St. Louis, Illinois; North Lawndale and the south side of Chicago; New York, New York; Camden, New Jersey; Washington, D.C.; San Antonio, Texas; and Cincinnati, Ohio, researching their school systems. Kozol’s book exposes the glaring inequalities present in these cities. Kozol devotes a chapter to each of these cities—with the exception of San Antonio and Cincinnati—identifying the inequalities children there face. His statistics expose these shocking injustices perpetrated by the powerful. The truths Kozol uncovers in Savage Inequalities challenge anyone’s misconceptions about equality in the United States.
The schools in Kozol 's essay dealt with lack of funding compared to other schools in New York. For example, Kozol states that the education of a third grade child, in nineteen ninety seven to nineteen ninety eight, in an inner city New York costs the New York Board of Education roughly eight thousand dollars per year. However, if you put that same third grader in a school in the white suburbs of New York, she would receive an education worth about twelve thousand dollars. Kozol adds to this by explaining that the prices on both sides have only risen (Kozol 208). A principal details the restraints on the school the lack of funding has brought, "the principal poured out his feelings to me in a room in which a plastic garbage bag had been attached somehow to cover part of the collapsing ceiling. 'This, ' he told me, pointing to the garbage bag, and then gesturing all around him at the other indications of decay and disrepair one sees in ghetto schools much like it elsewhere,
Octavia Butler’s trilogy Lilith’s Brood contains a myriad of characters who would be marked as “different” in contemporary American society, whether it is because of their race, gender, sex, or species. Their differences are often the catalyst for conflict between others who see themselves as more normal and, therefore, better and higher ranked in the human hierarchy. Butler’s disdain for human hierarchical tendencies is clear in Lilith’s Brood as she often calls human intelligence and hierarchy “the human contradiction”. Using the protagonists Lilith, Akin, and Jodahs, Butler criticizes the misconceptions formulated about race, sex, and gender and, through their interactions with others, underlines the illogical harassment that often derives from the fear of what we do not yet understand.
The essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, by Jonathan Kozol, discusses the reality of inner-city public school systems, and the isolation and segregation of inequality that students are subjected to; as a result, to receive an education. Throughout the essay, Kozol proves evidence of the inequality that African American and Hispanic children face in the current school systems.
The Ferguson vs. Missouri caught the attention of U.S. It was all over the social media, to be exact Twitter. After the fatal shooting of an unarmed African-American, Michael Brown, there was a peaceful protest for the incident. According to McGraw-Hill dictionary of American Idioms “step up” means to increase on something. The peaceful protest was a step up for Brown’s supporters. David Banner, a rapper, tweeted “The men and women on the front line have done their jobs. It’s time for teachers, politicians, and the elite to step up.” The local community stepped up in the case of Brown by peacefully protesting but later became a tragic event of looting and destroying property. It was the alleged reason that caused the
Inequalities in Education Funding inequalities have been an issue from past to present, especially in the low-income communities. In fact, students in urban areas with less funding have low attendance, score lower on standardized testing, and a low graduation rate. Also subjected to outdated textbooks, old dilapidated buildings, students in the inner cities need to compete with their suburban and wealthy counterparts for this reason funding inequalities must end and more money should be directed to these communities from federal, state, and local governments. Frank Johnson, a writer for the National Center for Education Statistics, “Disparities in Public School Spending.”
In Jonathan Kozol’s essay titled, “From Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid,” Kozol touches on how racial segregation has not disappeared in big cities’ urban public school systems. In this essay we can see how both types of judgements; racial and academic come together to form a stereotype about intellectual success in our current educational system. On the other hand, he brings to our attention that it is the American citizen’s common belief that racial segregation in public schools doesn’t exist anymore. In Kozol’s work he discusses various schools in major cities he has visited and offers the reader personal anecdotes from interviews with students. One quote from a student that I found remarkably interesting is “we do not have the things you have. You have clean things. We do not have. You have a clean bathroom. We do not have that. You have Parks and we do not have Parks. You have all the thing and we do not have all the thing. Can you help us?” (Kozol). This little girl is begging and reaching out to a white man because she thinks that he can help her. I am curious as to why she thinks that white schools have more than children at her school and if this is from first hand experience or from hearing from others. Does she think this way because her school demographics are composed mostly of one race? More importantly, I hope that someone did not teach her to think that
They are overwhelmingly nonwhite and exceptionally poor, which stands out forcefully from the well off overwhelmingly white rural schools right alongside them (Kozol 74). He constrains his choices to poor inner city schools as opposed to incorporating examples of every single poor school in light of the fact that he feels that they best display racial isolation and social class divisions. He states that even though many schools can be “diverse” with different cultures and ethnicities, segregation occurs through different programs that are provided in
Jonathan Kozol, an award winning writer, wrote the essay “Still separate, Still Equal” that focuses on primary and secondary school children from minority families that are living in poverty. There is a misconception in this modern age that historical events in the past have now almost abolished discrimination and segregation for the most part; however, “schools that were already deeply segregated
Until the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his life’s work was dedicated to the nonviolent actions of blacks to gain the freedoms they were promised in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. He believed that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (King, 1963). These injustices had become so burdensome to blacks that they were “plunged into an abyss of despair” (King, 1963). The nonviolent actions of the sit-ins, boycotts, and marches were so the “individual could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths…to help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism” and ultimately lead to “inevitably opening the door to negotiation” (King, 1963). Not only was King’s approach effective with the older black generation, it was also successful with white people. They did not feel threatened when approached by King. White people gained a sense of empathy towards the plight of black freedom as King’s promise of nonviolence did not threaten their livelihood. Malcolm X viewed the world similarly to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., however; his beliefs to changing the status quo were slightly different from his political counterpart. Malcolm X realized that “anger could blind human vision” (X, 1965). In realizing this, X knew that in order to achieve racial freedom blacks had to “forget hypocritical politics and propaganda” (X, 1965). While Malcolm X was more so an advocate for violent forces against white people than King, X merely used force when it became necessary for defense. According to X, “I don’t go for non-violence if it also means a delayed solution. I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to American black man’s problem” (X, 1965). However, this le...
In the first segment of his film series, Different but Equal, Basil Davidson sets out to disprove the fictitious and degrading assumptions about African civilization made by various Western scholars and explorers. Whether it is the notion that Africans are “savage and crude in nature” or the presumed inability of Africans to advance technologically, these stereotypes are damaging to the image and history of Africa. Although European Renaissance art depicts the races of white and black in equal dignity, there was a drastic shift of European attitudes toward Africa that placed Africans in a much lower standing than people of any other culture. The continent of Africa quickly became ravished by the inhuman slave trade and any traditional civilization
In Confronting Inequality, Paul Krugman discusses the cost of inequality and possible solutions. Krugman argues to say that it is a fantasy to believe the rich live just like the middle class. Then, he goes into detail about how middle class families struggle to try to give their children a better life and how education plays a factor in children’s future lives. For example, children’s ability to move into higher education could be affected by their parents economic status. Also, He discusses how politicians play a role in the inequality, because most of politicians are in the upper economic class. Finally, Krugman says how we could possibly have solutions to these various inequalities, but how America won’t get
The gap between the nation’s best and worst public schools continues to grow. Our country is based on freedom and equality for all, yet in practice and in the spectrum of education this is rarely the case. We do not even have to step further than our own city and its public school system, which many media outlets have labeled “dysfunctional” and “in shambles.” At the same time, Montgomery County, located just northwest of the District in suburban Maryland, stands as one of the top school systems in the country. Within each of these systems, there are schools that excel and there are schools that consistently measure below average. Money alone can not erase this gap. While increased spending may help, the real problem is often rooted in the complex issues of social, cultural, and economic differences. When combined with factors involving the school itself and the institution that supports it, we arrive at what has been widely known as the divide between the suburban and urban schools. Can anything actually be done to reverse this apparent trend of inequality or are the outside factors too powerful to change?
The subject of equality and inequality are a sensitive and controversial topic. Both equality and inequality were portrayed in the short story, “The Lesson.” In this short story by Toni Cade Bambara, Miss Moore, a well known woman in the neighborhood, gives the children in her local area a lesson about the brutal inequalities that are in existence within the socioeconomic status system. This leads the children to ponder about the equality and inequality that exists within society. Toni Cade Bambara uses her short story, “The Lesson” in order to shed light on the injustices and racial inequalities in society. The goal of the story is to not only fight for racial equalities, but socioeconomic equalities as well.