ipl-logo

Still Separate Still Unequal Summary

1300 Words6 Pages

One of the great qualities of America is that everyone is entitled to equal opportunities. That if we work hard enough we will be able to reach amazing heights and pave the way to a better future, but unfortunately some aren’t given that fair chance and it’s America’s children who are sadly suffering. All over the country children in public schools, minorities especially, are being subjected to school segregation. Based on matters such as race, ethnicity, and social class students are given an education that undoubtedly contradicts the promise of equal educational opportunities. The goal of America’s educational system is to provide all of the nation’s students with a public, gratuitous education that is of fair and equal quality, insuring …show more content…

Inspirational leaders of integration such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall, fought to end segregation in education and the world, and significantly left their mark upon it. Unfortunately, the names of some of the most segregated schools in the country are named after them. Why is that? It is because of the prejudicial factors that America’s educational system allows, which corresponds to the uncontrollable circumstances that are negatively affecting the educational opportunities of children. Longtime educational critic and author of “Still Separate, Still Unequal” Jonathan Kozol, believes that school segregation may be more common today than it’s ever been before. In fact, he argues that resegregation in inner city schools is surprisingly voluntarily or even by forced upon by law but no one will admit to this. According to Jonathan Kozol, “There is, indeed, a seemingly agreed-upon convention in much of the media today not even to use an accurate descriptor like ‘racial segregation’ in a narrative description of a segregated school” (204). This here suggests that society itself can’t even admit to this issue. The concept of racial segregation is unfathomable but it’s happening, and it’s happening in our schools as if it were the norm. People believe that just because there are a few white …show more content…

The idea of desegregation focuses on putting an end to the inequality among races, and in this sense student education. Forced desegregation in schools helps all students achieve more academically and equalizes America’s educational system In This American Life podcast titled, “The Problem We All Live With” the spotlight is on the students of the Normandy School District in Normandy, Missouri and their controversial journey to receive quality education. Nikole Hanna-Jones takes us through the course Normandy students had to take to get there, despite the complaints from parents or a community. Jones explains that there isn’t anything magical when a black child goes to school with a white child and there will be no switch that will automatically make them understand material but what is does is, “it gives access to quality teachers and quality instruction” (Nikole Hanna-Jones). With this access, students are given a chance to succeed, and this podcast emphasizes that not everyone is given this opportunity like the students at Normandy and like students all over country. If the educational system truly provided all children with equal access to education there would be no need for desegregation. Unfortunately, there is. Education is of such importance that even at the worst of times it is still on the mind. Nikole

Show More
Related
330 Words | 2 Pages

In the article “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Education Apartheid” author Jonathan Kozol argues that segregation is still a major issue in our education system. Kozol talks about schools where minorities make up the major student body. He states that schools with namesakes tied to the civil rights movement are some of the most isolated schools for minorities where white students make up less than a third of the student body. Kozol proceeds to talk about these schools where minorities make up the student population, he says that these are some of the poorest schools they are old and in need of repairs and new technology and supplies. He says that the education of these students has been deemed less important and that they are not

Read More
2054 Words | 9 Pages

In the article Does the Negro need Separate Schools? By W. E. Burghardt Du Bois he talks about how even if black people work hard then cannot accomplish many things in their lives and do not get the recognition they deserve. “segregation is forced upon them by dominant white public opinion, they will suddenly lose interest and scarcely raise a finger to see that the resultant Negro schools get a fair share of the public funds so as to have adequate equipment and housing” this words can explain why schools where there is a big population of students of color there's a hidden curriculum that is making this young people not succeed in their lives because the teacher do not support them because the majority of the school have white teachers and they might not know the experiences this young people have to go through to be able to be at

Read More
432 Words | 2 Pages

Within his essay, “Still Separate, Still Unequal”, Jonathan Kozol details the methodical resurgence of segregation amongst the inner-city school districts from civilization. Further, extending the definition passed its racial limitations by observing a diverse faction of both students and school officials. Therefore, engulfing him in a world filled with dilapidated facilities and scripted vocabularies that are designed to manage how teachers develop students into profitable citizens. Subsequently, navigating Kozol to conclude that if the nation’s inequalities are still gradually dictating the value of an individual’s education. Then that said person within the new interpretation of segregation has lost something more than education, they have lost their childhood.

Read More
1291 Words | 6 Pages

Throughout Jonathan Kozol’s essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid” (347) and “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” (374) by Beverly Tatum, both Kozol and Tatum discuss racial issues in the educational system. Kozol and Tatum explain racial issues by presenting two different instances that racial issues have played a roles. These two instances being visiting different public schools by Kozol and noticing the cafeteria segregation by Tatum. Using their own personal experiences, their arguments essentially come to similar conclusions, so by comparing their essays, the most significant problems are brought to the table.

Read More
150 Words | 1 Pages

The segregation in America's school districts are restrictions to the minority groups that seek further education. School districts in larger cities can not afford to have proper facilities for their students and fail to provide proper instructors. American author, Jonathan Kozol, exposes how inner city school districts are separating the minority children from the white children. In these segregated school districts, the schools that are primarily white have better facilities while the schools that include students with ethnic backgrounds have much higher dropout rates. Kozol’s goal is to share to the parents of grade school children how run down school districts are in the inner city.

Read More
803 Words | 4 Pages

Jones analyzes that reading test scores of blacks were 39 points lower than whites in 1971, but “dropped to just 18 points by 1988 at the height of desegregation” (Jones). This justifies the idea of desegregation, it does work. In the school district of Francis Howell, where the parents of the white children are freaking out with the busing of blacks from a non accredited school district of Normandy, it is a common trend to create speculation. It is only a logical assumption to think the blacks will bring down a mainly white school’s credibility since “in 11 of 13 measures, the district didn't earn a single

Read More
1700 Words | 7 Pages

This may be true; however, the portrayal makes those in Cherry Hill seem to care only about the students if they are white. Although some of the views were slightly slanted, his findings in the schools were rather correct to the truth in those schools. Trying to remain objective in such emotional and life-shattering situations is very difficult, but the author does his best to show the findings about each of these schools as accurate as they

Read More
549 Words | 3 Pages

The American education system provides less resources and inexperienced teachers to schools with low-income students, which are said to be mainly African American and Latino. This continuing inequality has detrimental effects on society. In 2013, only 66 percent of African American graduated on time, while 83 percent of White students finished high school in four years. These facts undermine our core beliefs about education and equality. It also undermines our national ability to be competitive in the global

Read More
869 Words | 4 Pages

In the twenty-first century the Blacks education is more segregated than it was during the Reconstruction (Source 3). I argue that the Reconstruction did not successfully solve problems of segregation, Ku Klux Klan, and freedom caused by slavery and the Civil War. Nearly 90% of intensely segregated, black and Latino schools are also where at least

Read More
1341 Words | 6 Pages

In Jonathan Kozol’s article “still separate, still unequal: America’s educational apartheid” Kozol argues that the current American school system is putting racial groups at a disadvantage by splitting them from richer urban school by their location that they live by putting them in underfunded city schools; which undermines and voids anti segregation movements such as the brown v board that were set up during the civil rights movement. “Educators make the argument today that... our only realistic goal should be the nurturing of strong, empowered, and well-funded schools in segregated neighborhoods. Black school officials in these situations have sometimes conveyed to me a bitter and clear-sighted recognition that they're being asked...to mediate and render functional an uncontested separation between children of their race and children of white people living...sometimes in almost their own immediate communities... And some...do not even dare to ask for, or expect, complete equality...but look instead for only a sufficiency of means—"adequacy"...

Read More
699 Words | 3 Pages

Alonso, Gaston, et al. Our Schools Suck: Students Talk Back to a Segregated Nation on the Failures of Urban Education. New York University Press, 2009. Gaston Alonso, Noel S. Anderson, Celina Su, and Jeanne Theoharis, professors of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, provide their personal accounts on the reality of neglected urban schools and communities. Specifically, Noel S. Anderson, whose academic research focuses on career and post-secondary pathways for low-income youth, discusses his experience of how he and the other students suffered in segregated schools in New York City as he was growing up.

Read More
702 Words | 3 Pages

Many of the trailblazers of the Civil Rights movement feel that they have taken too hard of a mental toll on such little change. There have been numerous losses with the failed integration including; loss of community, black leadership in school environments, and the parent's lack of interest in their child's schooling. The new push for integration does not change the total environment of black children in urban areas. The integration does not address the unbalanced racial composition of the schools. The blame can only rest on the prominent race in

Read More
1556 Words | 7 Pages

INTRODUCTION “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.” -Chief Justice Earl Warren Separate But Equal, directed by George Stevens Jr, is an American made-for-television movie that is based on the landmark Brown v. Board of Directors case of the U.S. Supreme court which established that segregation of primary schools based on race, as dictated by the ‘Separate but Equal’ doctrine, was unconstitutional based on the reinterpretation of the 14th amendment and thus, put an end to state-sponsored segregation in the US. Aims and Objectives:

Read More
557 Words | 3 Pages

The Shame of The Nation “Separate and unequal didn’t work 100 years ago. It will not work today,” quote by Jonathan Kozol. 12 years ago, Kozol conducted research on segregated schools named after leaders, such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Today, segregation has evolved over the years and has not once left the minds of the people. Educational Landscape

Read More
1477 Words | 6 Pages

An education is one of the most vital aspects of a child’s upbringing. The desegregation of schools has not only proved to universally better the lives of many, but there is a significant societal value to diversity and inclusion. Yet, it is unjust to think that our country should be changing for both races; our country should change on the sole negative consequences of those of color. Director of the Civil Rights Project Gary Orfield sums it up best. Using clear, concise sentence formatting and strong, dignifying language, Orfield states that “it is time to stop celebrating a version of history that ignores our last quarter century of retreat and begin to make new history by finding ways to apply the vision of Brown in a transformed, multiracial society in another century” (Epperly, Jessica).

Read More

More about Still Separate Still Unequal Summary

Related Topics

Open Document