KOZOL - QUOTES

Johnathan Kozol, Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid

In the article, the author quotes the principal of an inner-city school complains of the decay and disrepair of his school and goes onto say that this “would not happen to white children.” This opinion, along with other opinions and statistics is meant to convince us that education is still separate and still unequal.

I don’t know that the principal is right. After all, if the inner-city schools were filled with white students, then those things he spoke of would happen to them as well. I think the lack of a quality education in large inner-city schools is due to economic factors, not racial. It just so happens that inner cities have large minority populations, and the suburbs have more non-minority populations. The latter are more affluent, consequently their schools will be more affluent, and their children will receive a better education. So, it’s economics, right?

Marina Warner, the essayist and novelist, is also quoted in the text as saying, “There are expensive children and there are cheap children.” The author used this quote to further his point that poor inner-city children don’t have the same preschool opportunity as the affluent children do. The latter’s parents spend large quantities of money to send their children to preschool – something that the inner-city parents can’t afford. Again, to me it’s economics.

The author states that hundreds of thousands of children of the very poor are locked out of the opportunity for preschool education “for no reason but the accident of birth and budgetary choices of the government.” I disagree that it’s due to the accident of birth. It’s due to economic circumstances. If the minority could afford the suburb schools, they would get the same education as the majority.