49 Jonathan Kozol Quotes for You to Enjoy

Jonathan Kozol

American Writer

Born: Sep 5, 1936

Children People School Who Will You

Related authors: Dale Carnegie Denis Waitley Dr. Seuss H. L. Mencken Napoleon Hill Ray Bradbury W. E. B. Du Bois William Arthur Ward

The trouble is not that schools don't work; they do. They're excellent machines for achieving historically accepted purposes. In suburban schools are children of the rich, who grow up to privilege and anesthetic oblivion to pain - and who then use the servants produced by ghetto schools. Jonathan Kozol

Work Trouble Rich Pain Ghetto Machines Anesthetic Oblivion Purposes Excellent Schools Accepted Up Historically Privilege Children Achieving Suburban Then Produced Use Who Grow Grow Up Servants

So long as the most vulnerable people in our population are consigned to places that the rest of us will always shun and flee and view with fear, I am afraid that educational denial, medical and economic devastation, and aesthetic degradation will be inevitable. Jonathan Kozol

People Fear Denial Will Rest Long Inevitable Our Degradation Economic Devastation Most Vulnerable Always Am Aesthetic Educational Afraid Places Flee Us View Population Medical Shun

Our political establishment refuses to use the word 'segregated.' They call the schools diverse, which means half black, half Hispanic, and maybe two white kids and three Asians. 'Diverse' has become a synonym for 'segregated.' Jonathan Kozol

Political Word Black Three Half Become White Our Synonym Kids Diverse Segregated Schools Call Hispanic Maybe Refuses Establishment Which Asians Means Use Two

An awful lot of people come to college with this strange idea that there's no longer segregation in America's schools, that our schools are basically equal; neither of these things is true. Jonathan Kozol

Strange People College Our Neither Segregation True Idea Longer Come Equal Schools Lot America Awful Awful Lot Things Basically

Racial segregation has come back to public education with a vengeance. Jonathan Kozol

Education Public Education Back Segregation Come Vengeance Public Racial

Apartheid does not happen spontaneously, like bad weather conditions. Jonathan Kozol

Weather Bad Bad Weather Like Spontaneously Does Conditions Happen Apartheid

Separate and unequal didn't work 100 years ago. It will not work today. Jonathan Kozol

Work Today Will Years Years Ago Unequal Separate

Hypersegregated inner-city schools - in which one finds no more than five or ten white children, at the very most, within a student population of as many as 3,000 - are the norm, not the exception, in most northern urban areas today. Jonathan Kozol

By far the most important factor in the success or failure of any school, far more important than tests or standards or business-model methods of accountability, is simply attracting the best-educated, most exciting young people into urban schools and keeping them there. Jonathan Kozol

Success Failure People School Important Accountability Young More Factor Simply Exciting Most Attracting Schools Methods Tests Than Any The Most Important Urban Young People Them Far Standards Keeping

I once made a check of all books in my fourth-grade classroom. Of the slightly more than six hundred books, almost one quarter had been published prior to the bombing of Hiroshima; 60 percent were either ten years old or older. Jonathan Kozol

Old Made Older Hundred Books Once Slightly Percent Ten Classroom More Ten Years Had Almost Check Prior Quarter Were Hiroshima Been Years Than Six Either Published Bombing

I beg people not to accept the seasonal ritual of well-timed charity on Christmas Eve. It's blasphemy. Jonathan Kozol

Christmas Charity People Ritual Blasphemy Accept Well-Timed Beg Eve Christmas Eve

Discrimination is alive and soaring. Jonathan Kozol

Alive Discrimination Soaring

Childhood ought to have at least a few entitlements that aren't entangled with utilitarian considerations. One of them should be the right to a degree of unencumbered satisfaction in the sheer delight and goodness of existence in itself. Jonathan Kozol

Entitlement Degree Goodness Few Ought Considerations Entangled Delight Sheer Least Existence Itself Unencumbered Childhood Them Should Utilitarian Satisfaction Right

I think a lot of people don't have any idea of how deeply segregated our schools have become all over again. Most textbooks are not honest in what they teach our high school students. Jonathan Kozol

So long as these kinds of inequalities persist, all of us who are given expensive educations have to live with the knowledge that our victories are contaminated because the game has been rigged to our advantage. Jonathan Kozol

What I tell these young people is, the world is not as dangerous as the older generation would like you to believe. Anyone I know who has ever taken a risk and lost a job has ended up getting a better one two years later. Jonathan Kozol

You Generation People World Dangerous Better Job Lost Young Older Believe Later Tell Would Risk Taken Like Know Years Up Ended Getting Anyone Young People Who Older Generation Ever Two

The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail. Jonathan Kozol

Today Hope Teacher Prevail Challenges Spending Spent Neighborhoods City Area Daunting Retain Between New Fairness Still Educate Salaries Than Child York Any Often New York New York City Where New Yorkers Suburban Might Poorest Lower Even Levels

All of my education at Harvard, then Oxford, then Paris was in literature - even my thesis was on Shakespeare. Jonathan Kozol

Education Harvard Shakespeare Paris Oxford Literature Then Even Thesis

'Savage Inequalities' was about school finance, and 'Amazing Grace' primarily dealt with medical and social injustices in New York. But with 'Ordinary Resurrections,' I had no predetermined agenda. When I met with the children, I was not in pursuit of any line of thinking. In our conversations, I let them lead me where they wanted to go. Jonathan Kozol

Savage Finance Me Grace School Amazing Met Thinking Our About Pursuit Lead Had Primarily New Inequalities Dealt Go Line York Any New York Where Children Wanted Predetermined Ordinary Conversations Social Them Agenda Injustices Medical

At that time, I had recently finished a book called Amazing Grace, which many people tell me is a very painful book to read. Well, if it was painful to read, it was also painful to write. I had pains in my chest for two years while I was writing that book. Jonathan Kozol

Time Me Book People Writing Grace Amazing Finished Tell Write Had Also Well Read Chest Years Very Which While Painful Pains Many Two Recently

But for the children of the poorest people we're stripping the curriculum, removing the arts and music, and drilling the children into useful labor. We're not valuing a child for the time in which she actually is a child. Jonathan Kozol

Music Time People Stripping Valuing Drilling Removing She Labor Child Arts Curriculum Children Which Poorest Useful Actually

During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially. During that time the gap between black and white achievement narrowed. Jonathan Kozol

Education Time Achievement Progress Black Black And White White Public Schools Thousands Brown Tens Tens Of Thousands Between Schools Terrific Were Integrated Decades After Board Public Gap

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