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.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the misconception that schools in America are free of segregation and inequality.
Jonathan Kozol's quote emphasizes the persistent issues of segregation and inequality in American schools, challenging the naive belief that education is equitable for all. It serves as a critical reminder that despite advancements, many students still face disparities based on race and socioeconomic status, calling for awareness and action to address these ongoing injustices.
In practice
In a speech addressing educational reforms, one might cite this quote to underline the need for equity in schools.
A great deal has been written in recent years about the purported lack of motivation in the children of the Negro ghettos. Little in my experience supports this, yet the phrase has been repeated endlessly, and the blame in almost all cases is placed somewhere outside the classroom.
Schooling should not be left to the whim or wealth of village elders. I believe that we should fund all schools in the U.S. with our national resources. All these kids are being educated to be Americans, not citizens of Minneapolis or San Francisco.
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.
I wrote the first book, and I thought people would say: 'Separate and unequal schools in the City of Boston? I didn't know that. Let's go out and fix it.'
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.
Children are not simply commodities to be herded into line and trained for the jobs that white people who live in segregated neighborhoods have available.
When I talk to students - and I still think of myself more than anything as a kind of professor on leave - they say, 'Well, how do I get to do what you do?'... And I say, 'Well, you have to start out by being a failed piano major.' And my point to them is don't try to have a 10-year plan. Find the next thing that interests you and follow that.
No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest- for it is a part of education to learn to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude.
"What greater gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?"
Unless children have strong education and strong families and strong communities and decent housing, it's not enough to go sit in at a lunch counter.
Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
The man who never reads lives only one.
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