Kozol Still Separate Still Unequal Analysis

Kozol describes conditions the clearly violate the landmark court decision in "Brown vs. Board of Education" (No. 1, SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 347 U.S. 483; 74 S. Ct. 686; 98 L. Ed. 873; 1954 U.S. LEXIS 2094; 53 Ohio Op. 326; 38 A.L.R.2d 1180, December 9, 1952, Argued, May 17, 1954, Decided, Reargued December 8, 1953), which supposedly mandated the desegregation of schools in America. Towns close enough to easily integrate face almost total segregation with abysmal conditions in the Black and/or Latino schools and tremendously good resources in the white schools.

In Jonathan Kozol’s essay, “Savage Inequalities” Kozol explains what he has learned from visiting three different district ten schools in New York. Kozol ultimately argues that students from low economic classes are being pushed aside and not given an equal education like the kids from high economic class schools. Looking at Kozol’s essay through a postcolonial scope the low class students can easily be seen as the subaltern and the high class students can be seen as the fortunate who benefit from the hegemonic power. Kozol describes the lower class school situation as if it weren't even school. Public School 261 is at a roller rink not even a formal built school. Some rhetoric devices that Kozol employs in his essay are artistic along with

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.

In 1964, the author, Jonathan Kozol, is a young man who works as a teacher. Like many others at the time, the grade school where he teaches is segregated (teaching only non-white students), understaffed, and in poor physical condition. 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 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

Chapter 1 talked about dishonoring the dead. Kozol talks about how schools that are usually named after famous black activists such as Martin Luther King would be very much inferred as integrated, but they are very much the opposite. Many schools are still very segregated, which is unfortunate considering it is the complete opposite of what Luther spent his life fighting for. Kozol makes it apparent that minorities such as Blacks and Hispanics attend schools that are predominantly minorities. This creates a problem within itself, as whites do not attend schools that have large numbers of minorities, causing even more segregation. Overall, Kozol is trying to prove that segregation as a whole is still alive

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.

“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.

As we first take a look at the frightening statistics Kozol provides, this claim of segregation becomes so much more real. As evidenced in the text, the vast majority of enrollment in most of the public schools in our major cities is black or Hispanic: 79%

It has become common today to dismiss the lack of education coming from our impoverished public schools. Jonathan Kozol an award winning social injustice writer, trying to bring to light how our school system talks to their students. In his essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal," Kozol visits many public high schools as well as public elementary schools across the country, realizing the outrageous truth about segregating in our public education system. Kozol, cross-examining children describing their feelings as being put away where no one desires your presence. Children feeling diminished for being a minority; attending a school that does not take into consideration at the least the child’s well being. Showing clear signs of segregation in the education system.

The statistics he gives in the book are very startling, stating how in one school the classrooms are racially segregated. In one classroom there are all white students, maybe one or two black or Asian children. In another classroom, the “special” class, all the children are black, with maybe one white child. Kozol does not understand how one could look at this situation and deny that this is racism. Kozol says that, according to a study done by the State Commissioner of Education, “as many as three out of four blacks … fail to complete high school within the traditional four-year periods” (112). The dropout rates that Kozol presents to the reader are unimaginable and very heartbreaking.

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.

Kozol comments that, “nearly forty years after Brown vs. the Board of Education many of are schools are still separate but no longer even remotely equal.”

Most inner city schools are not challenging their students and not allowing them to be creative. Yet, challenging students is their normal practice in the better school. On the other hand, all inner city schools should give their students with the same amount of education as private schools in order to better their education. There are different methods of teaching between these schools, especially when it comes to economics and geography. “Scholars in political economy and the sociology of knowledge have recently argued that public schools in complex industrial societies like our own make available different types of educational experience and curriculum knowledge to students in different social classes” (Anyon, 1980). Even though years after Brown versus Board of Education, where the Supreme Court declared segregation to be unconstitutional, Caucasian, African and Hispanic Americans continue to learn in different worlds. As long as each race has low incomes, there will always be unequal education.