Jonathan Kozol

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 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.

The first school he went to first he says is located inside an old skating rink! He tells us this to show us how the schools were not made properly in a appropriately designated area for students. The next public school he goes to he says that it was very crowded. He then discusses the insufficient money income of the two public schools he visited compared to another school he visited in River dale. River dale is a rich area with a bunch if expensive houses sou rounding it. Jonathan finds out that in the first two schools he visited, they get six thousand dollars per student, but in the third public school, located in River dale, gets eleven thousand dollars per student. This is because in New York the unfairly divided the amount of money provided to the schools depending on the value of houses in that area, so basically if there are wealthy houses then the school is wealthy but if not then the school is

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

The prominent reason why expenditures per student and the allocation of revenue varies so greatly between these wealthier school districts and the more impoverished school districts in America, is the fact that their budgets are based on revenue generated by property taxes. The higher the taxes in a district, the greater the revenue and the resulting increase in financial capital that a school district has at its disposal. The result is much smaller class sizes, state of the art technology and facilities, better qualified teachers and faculty, and a significantly more amount of personal attention for the privileged students that attend these private schools.

If the education system relies most of their funding from taxes, where do they end up getting the rest of the money. The government and administration grant more money to wealthier areas than low -income areas. Wealthier communities are granted more money because they have a higher percentage of funding coming from property taxes. This leaves the low-income students at a disadvantage. People living in low income areas mainly rent and don’t own their own property. As a result of not having a house or owning property, they have little property taxes. If low -income students are not given enough money for funding a school, the students are suffering. With the lack of money causes students to miss out on college prep classes such as AP classes and Honors classes. These classes are pivotal to the students that want to pursue higher education and a road to success. For example students in the low-income areas are given a poor education. They are not given the resources, or quality teachers in order to achieve success. According to George Miller House Education and the Workforce committee, many students are not educationally ready to graduate and attend higher education (Minority 1). This is another reason why low income students should be provided the same classes as a middle class or a wealthier community. In a study, 2 million students in 7,300 schools had no access to all calculus classes, a staple in many high – achieving high schools (Minority 2). Low-income

However, there are too many discrepancies being ignored by the general public on the nature of local property taxes and their role in public education. Therefore, using local funds to support local schools of each designated district, allows for educational discrimination. Thus, it would seem utmost important to the future of public education, in relation to funding, to end local taxing that goes into the funding of school. Instead, public school funding should derive from the federal income tax funds, to ensure every student who attends public education institutions to receive the same amount of funds which are to be invested in their academic career. An idea also shared with Brian Wilson, author of the article,”Raising Taxes for Education Is Not the Answer,” as Wilson states; “ When money is short, leaders must raise taxes or create new ones to make up for what they perceive as lost revenue. However, government should always resist the creation of a new tax unless it replaces one that has been abolished”(Wilson,p.11). It simply would not seem fair to increase federal tax for all just to help fund public schooling, considering that is the general purpose for local property tax. That is why, it would seem most indispensable to remove local property taxes. The majority of these funds go to maintaining and or upgrading public facilities, as

Living in America, it is easily noticeable to tell the difference between a wealthy and poor community. Income inequity is in a variety of issues and topics between rich and poor. It is the extent to how income is distributed unevenly among the population that keeps on increasing the gap between the rich and poor. Income inequity creates a problem to where low-income high schools are not receiving the same benefits or resources as high-income high schools. The differences between these two, is from the location in which the schools are located. Income inequity brings a conflict and a solution to where low-income high schools can start moving forward to receiving the same benefits or resources as high income high schools, is to have the government provide more funding of resources to the low income schools, and to have donations from the well-off schools.

Currently, wealthier neighborhoods spend more money on their schools. With a nationalized school system we can change the school tax system from property taxes to standard sales or general taxes and distribute the funds evenly. Such a drastic change may result in an outcry from parents in wealthier neighborhoods but this would only serve to heighten attention on the fact that schools need more funding to function properly and unequal distribution only reinforces the inequities (Miller).

Within the next chapters, chapters 2 and 3, I began to really take into consideration Kozol’s way of writing and point of views. The voices were coming to life and it was nearly as if I was there in that classroom watching this degrading event occur. Chapter 2 began the illustration of how corrupt the education system really was in that particular day and age (some odd 40-50 years ago and continues today). Although all children should serve as equals, they were not and do not. It was merely a totem pole of color, whites being on top and colored falling below and usually falling behind. He compares the inner-city schools portraying the characteristics that a totalitarian government was then present and the funding for education was very scarce and limited regardless of the how well the economy was doing. The iteration of how poorly the children were focused on was also present and the point was once noted within the reading that the expressiveness of children was often muted (p. 71). Children weren’t allowed expression nor were they allowed activities outside of the lines. It was much like a

Also fully aware of its privileged position in society. The educational inequality of the rich and the poor leads to the high social status of the family, and the students with wealthy economic background can choose "elite school", and families with low social status and poor economic conditions can only send their children to "lower working class school". This caused by the gap between rich and poor in the various economic strata. Many rich children can afford high accommodation and so on, and can enjoy superior educational service. But for more children of poor families, they do not have the same resources as them since lack of the funding. We all know that Public education in the United States is borne by the federal, state, and local governments. The state government 's spending on public education is the largest, and the poorer states get more state fundings. However, the local government has played a vital role in the gap between rich and poor. The more wealthy community, the more money that the school can get. Because the money is from the taxpayer, the rich people certainly reported a higher tax. In fact, the gap between the rich and the poor has created inequality in their children 's basic education. According to the chapter, “While the same arithmetic book was used in all five schools, the teacher in one working-class school commented that she skipped pages dealing with mathematical reasoning and inference because they were too hard. The teacher in

Public school systems, run democratically to provide every child the tools and opportunity to learn. Like everything that we have made, they are not perfect or infallible, but they symbolize an ideal; that by providing every child a suitable environment to grow, the child would become a driving force that may galvanize the world to change for the better. Democracy and justice are the system’s core values – not profit, expansion or market share. However, the segregation of the rich from the poor into privileged and impoverished neighborhoods, has caused school funding to be polarized. It is the main reason why some schools struggle, not all of them have the resources that could have been allocated to them. At the same time whenever we look at school spending, we look at an average, never considering that most of that money goes to the children of the wealthy and much less to poor kids. Adding to that we have not considered that more than half of our public school students live

An elementary student wrote to Kozol, “Dear Mr. Kozol, 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 things and we do not have all the things. Can you help us?” (Kozol 351). This child lived in the Bronx and was in third grade. Kozol stated, New York’s Board of Education was only spending about $8,000 dollars yearly on education for the third grade. Had this student been white and living in a white suburb in New York, $12,000 dollars a year would be spent on education. If this student came from an even wealthier family in a white suburb in New York, $18,000 dollars yearly, would have been spent on education. Kozol provides this information to show what the Board of Education believes each child is worth.

One of the the main disadvantage schools in impoverished areas have is that their “school finance is based on local property taxes (Porter).” The environment around the schools includes people in extreme poverty. Just in Georgia,