In many of the high schools in the South Bronx, more children will end up in prison than will go to college.
Interpretation
The quote points out the stark reality of educational and social challenges faced by children in the South Bronx.
This quote by Jonathan Kozol highlights the alarming situation in many high schools in the South Bronx, where systemic issues result in a greater likelihood of children ending up in prison rather than pursuing higher education. It underscores the profound impact of socioeconomic factors and the urgent need for reform in the education and justice systems to ensure that every child has the opportunity to succeed and thrive.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the education reform needed in struggling communities.
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.
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.
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.
The main force pushing toward reduction in inequality has always been the diffusion of knowledge and the diffusion of education.
But I marvel when I observe these men setting themselves up as instructors of youth who cannot see that they are applying the analogy of an art with hard and fast rules to a creative process
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.
We can't afford not to educate girls and give women the power and the access that they need.
In the real world, the smartest people are people who make mistakes and learn. In school, the smartest people don't make mistakes.
Praise your child explicitly for how capable they are of learning rather than telling them how smart they are.
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