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Essay on segregation in education
Essay on segregation in education
Merits and demerits of the American educational system
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Barbara E Naranjo
Dr. Krystal Beamon
Sociology 4341
2 October 2014
The Shame of the Nation
The Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol is a book about the education system in our country. In this book, I learned that there are schools that don’t have the essential resources to provide each student with books or chairs. In his book, Kozol educates the reader as to the health of our public school system. In our public schools, American children are not offered the same opportunities to a good education; our schools are highly segregated between privileged kids and minorities, and our public schools prioritize state tests as more important than the well being of the child.
A good education has a price; the price is higher property tax and a great
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I was raised in Cuba with a similar system like the Skinnerian method, but like Kozol mentioned Cuban kids were allowed to interact with the teachers. I knew that Cuba had the best education in Latin America, but in my mind I had no doubt that the United States had the best education in the world. My mentality soon changed. At the age of 11 I came to the United States and that’s when I familiarize myself with the American teaching technique. On my first day of school I noticed that the majority of the kids were behind in almost every subject. With the help of my teachers I was able to understand and speak the English language within a year, but every time the state test came they would put me in ESL classes for that week, because my teachers did not wanted to risk their performance percentage. In these ESL classes I had the worst education experience. Most of the kids where Mexicans a few Europeans, and two Panamanians, together we spoke different languages and the teacher spent the whole week teaching us how to say, “I need to go the bathroom”. In her class there was no need to teach reading, writing, history …show more content…
Consequence to this was that only 1% of the kids that qualified to transferred were able to transfer to a better school.
Another example of segregation and inequality is the mini documentary trading schools showed by Oprah; we see the huge disadvantages and advantages from two different high schools from Chicago, which are only 30 miles away from each other. Harper the low-income school was a complete disaster compared to the higher income school. Watching this video all I could think about was “Why?” Why are we doing this? The inequalities from these two schools are not only shocking but also extremely sad. Like Kozol said a segregated education in
America is unacceptable. “This nations needs to be a family, and a family sits down for its dinner at a table, and we all deserve a place together at the table. And our children deserve to have a place together in their schools and classrooms, and they need to have that opportunity while they’re still children, while they’re in those years of innocence”(Kozol, 316). Because of those reasons and many more we have the same segregation in our schools today as we did 30 years ago. Naranjo 5
I remember going to Fulmore middle school in Austin TX, the first thing I noticed was
Savage Inequalities, written by Jonathan Kozol, shows his two-year investigation into the neighborhoods and schools of the privileged and disadvantaged. Kozol shows disparities in educational expenditures between suburban and urban schools. He also shows how this matter affects children that have few or no books at all and are located in bad neighborhoods. You can draw conclusions about the urban schools in comparison to the suburban ones and it would be completely correct. The differences between a quality education and different races are analyzed. Kozol even goes as far as suggesting that suburban schools have better use for their money because the children's futures are more secure in a suburban setting. He thinks that each child should receive as much as they need in order to be equal with everyone else. If children in Detroit have greater needs than a student in Ann Arbor, then the students in Detroit should receive a greater amount of money.
Lapham’s article was a concise, clear articulation on what school’s really – not learning institutes, but because of the benefits for the wealthy derived from the present system, it may never happen.
How will this growing problem be fixed, not only in the United States but the world as well? One important action is to continue the effort to improve schools worldwide. Schools in poorer areas of districts would benefit from a greater number of better trained teachers and faculty. Other actions to help improve schools would be to add more leadership and extracurricular activities, encourage students to focus and stay in school, and making things such as school lunch and recess better. It is important to have students enjoy being at school and enjoy learning, otherwise they'll lose intere...
because they had all scored too low on the initial exam to be put into
with the youth. It is with the youth that the future of the culture lies.
Paul Buck once said, “If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday” (Buck, P.). Considering that the relationship between America and minorities is entrench with bias, prejudice, and oppression it isn’t difficult to see why the public education system is over flowing with policies that promote institutional racism. The novel, The Shame of a nation by Jonathan Kozol and the short film, Eyes on the prize aim to educate the masses about the history of oppression in America’s educational system and the residual effects of the oppression on the present. Although many of the overt struggles outlined in these two pieces of work are no longer seen in schools today there residual effects are still covertly visible
In the video, Noguera states that education is frequently described by politicians as the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Noguera went on to say that the most important civil rights issue involving education in the 20th century, school segregation. Segregations remain a largely unresolved issue in our world and sad it is rarely mentioned as an important social issue that must be addressed. In Noguera's presentation, he analyzes the current reform agenda being promoted by states, the federal government and explains why issues pertaining to racial segregation and racial inequality are no longer considered central to school change initiatives. Moreover, Noguera calls out stakeholder that are failing to build capacity within education.
A flurry of solutions has been suggested, ranging from school uniforms to government grants. Unfortunately, many of these solutions are merely superficial. Uniforms, Internet access, and new buildings will do little to help overcrowded classrooms, overworked teachers, and disinterested students. The most obvious answer seems to lie in government grants to remedy buildings and supplies and standardized testing to confirm the quality of every education.
Education supports everyone getting opportunities in life and being able to choose better for themselves. As Horace Mann wrote, education is the “great equalizer for all.“ However, the United States Public School system will likely never be able to equally educate its masses of students. Public school educating all fairly is a myth.There is no one entity to blame for this failure. The failure lies with each student who has been conditioned to sit passively in an un-engaging classroom. Its failure lies in some students disrespectfully distracting their classmates and frustrating their once inspired teacher or administrator. The failure lies with administration being distracted with causes of the moment and burns out from knowing that all
Education is a fundamental aspect of any civilized nation. The goal of public education in America is to turn uninformed children into knowledgeable citizens who are fully capable of participating in a society driven by democracy and economics. Students drop out every year by the hundreds of thousands, and those who remain receive a less than satisfactory educational experience due to lack of funding, inadequate teachers, and flawed educational strategies. Americans must improve school funding and increase teacher pay to ensure all students receive quality primary and secondary education as well as reduce remediation and drop out rates through improved learning standards, effective assessment tools, and early-college initiatives that prepare students for college and the workforce.
Since 1995, enrollments in the urban public school system have doubled up to 62 percent in the 2010-2011 school year. Still, they received less money.
Mehta, Jal. "Why American Education Fails." Foreign Affairs 2013: 105-16. MasterFILE Main Edition. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. .
Jonathan Kozol was teacher and an author. He wrote a book called The Shame of the Nation. Kozel says this book isn’t supposed to make the readers comfortable, its about tradiagiy and return of schooling in America. Over the last fifteen years, the state of inner –city public schools has been in horrible and continuing decline says Kozel. Since the federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown V. Board of education, segregation of black children has reverted to its highest level since 1968.
Which caused so many problems when returning to school. My first grade teacher, Miss Gray, suggested to my parents that I should be held back a school year. My parents were skeptical of her suggestion because it was also her first year of teaching. They looked through and thought about all the pros and cons. A few pros being that it would give me a chance to learn how to speak, read, and write in English again, and that I would know the material due to the fact it would be reviewed. Cons being that I would be older than the rest of the kids, being that I was not going to be in the same class with my old friends, and many more. Looking back at it now, I wish they didn’t make the decision of holding me back a year, because I don’t believe the sole problem was me forgetting the English language, but the teacher who was unwilling to give me extra
Students who live below the poverty line have less motivation to succeed, and their parents are less inclined to participate in their child’s education, often because the parents cannot provide support for their children. Although it’s logical that school districts from poorer communities cannot collect as much funding as the richer communities, people stuck in these low-income communities often pay higher taxes, and still their school districts cannot accumulate as much money.... ... middle of paper ... ...