In his poignant essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid,” author Jonathan Kozol presents evidence to demonstrate that segregation is still a persistent problem in our education system. Kozol provides countless percentages of drastically unbalanced demographic statistics within urban schools throughout the nation. He also travels to several struggling inner-city schools to interview faculty, students and parents. Kozol uses the interviews to illustrate a vivid depiction of substandard conditions within urban schools. Overall, the subject matter throughout the essay is an emphasis on the deficient quality of education given to the children from low income families and minorities. Jonathan Kozol uses both logic and
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He discloses a letter he received from an eight-year-old girl who asks Kozol for help. The heart-breaking letter from the young girl recites multiple elements that she and her classmates do not have, “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?” (351). Kozol also shows us a depressing conversation between himself and a student regarding how she believes the people of New York would feel if she and her classmates disappeared. Her response is, “I think they’d be relieved,” (351). Kozol illustrates a grim reality of the feelings of isolated students whom feel disposable and insignificant. Ironically, Kozol points out many schools nationwide that are named after prominent civil rights activists yet still hold the burden of modern day segregation. He describes this travesty as, “disheartening” especially in cases where the school is not even located in a profoundly isolated inner-city community, but positioned in racially diverse areas (349). Kozol offers vivid imagery describing substandard conditions within a high school he visits, “where a stream of water flowed down one of the main stairwells on a rainy afternoon and where green fungus molds were growing in the office where the students went for counseling,” (352). He displays the raw emotion of a principal dealing with part of his ceiling collapsing
He discloses a letter he received from an eight-year-old girl who asks Kozol for help. The heart-breaking letter from the young girl recites multiple elements that she and her classmates do not have, “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?” (351). Kozol also shows us a depressing conversation between himself and a student regarding how she believes the people of New York would feel if she and her classmates disappeared. Her response is, “I think they’d be relieved,” (351). Kozol illustrates a grim reality of the feelings of isolated students whom feel disposable and insignificant. Ironically, Kozol points out many schools nationwide that are named after prominent civil rights activists yet still hold the burden of modern day segregation. He describes this travesty as, “disheartening” especially in cases where the school is not even located in a profoundly isolated inner-city community, but positioned in racially diverse areas (349). Kozol offers vivid imagery describing substandard conditions within a high school he visits, “where a stream of water flowed down one of the main stairwells on a rainy afternoon and where green fungus molds were growing in the office where the students went for counseling,” (352). He displays the raw emotion of a principal dealing with part of his ceiling collapsing