Kozol on America's Segregated Schools

From Inside Ed at the Baltimore Sun:

I had a great conversation with Jonathan Kozol before his talk last night at the University of Baltimore law school's Urban Child Symposium on the dropout crisis. He says the heart of the problem is segregation. Of Baltimore, he told me, "this is one of the most segregated school systems in America... this must be one of the closest to absolute apartheid." (I told him there are some schools in the city that are an exception to that. Folks at City Neighbors Charter had wanted to give him a tour of their well-integrated school, but it didn't fit into his schedule.)

Kozol quoted a recent speech by President Obama who said high school dropout rates have tripled since the early 1980s -- when, Kozol says, the schools began to "massively resegregate" and Brown vs. Board of Ed was effectively dismantled. He says black and Latino children are more segregated now than they have been since 1968, the year of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.

"I'm utterly out of fashion these days in that I actually believe Dr. King was right," said Kozol, 72, who doesn't use a computer and had hand-written notes for the address he was about to deliver to more than 100 people in a university auditorium. He says segregated schools convey the message to the children there that "you have been sequestered in this institution so you will not contaminate the education of white people." Children get this message from the condition of the buildings (often "squalid surroundings") and from dispirited teachers who have to "give up joy and creativity to become drill sergeants for the state." (Kozol went on a hunger strike in 2007 to protest No Child Left Behind.) He says the most successful African-Americans he's seen -- including Obama and Kurt Schmoke (a student of Kozol's once upon a time at Yale) -- did not have to attend segregated inner-city schools.

So what's the solution? Kozol likes what Dr. Alonso often says in jest about closing down all the private schools of the city. And he supports cross-city busing to integrate schools. But clearly, those things aren't going to happen anytime soon. Kozol says that when he began his work in education decades ago, he thought he could effect change. Now, he says, he's just a witness.

On another note: Kozol is also on the same page as Alonso in saying that good schools don't resort to suspension or expulsion as punishment for truancy and other non-violent offenses. "Nothing could be more Orwellian in its absurdity," he told the crowd at UB. He also says that full-day pre-kindergarten (preferably for multiple years before kindergarten) is essential, and holding children back for failure increases their chances of dropping out of high school exponentially. We're willing to hold an 8-year-old accountable for her performance, he said, yet we don't hold government leaders accountable for their failure to give inner-city children the same resources as they insist on for their own children.

College Newspapers Have Not Learned Who Not to Cover

Kozol's unblinking truth has never been a subject covered by corporate media, who prefer to lambast schools for low test scores rather than reporting on the return of apartheid schooling in America or the cognitive decapitation of black children under the brainwashing methods approved by Bush-crony crackpots like Reid Lyon, Doug Carnine, or Roland Good.

So when a college newspaper actually covers a Kozol event, I have to say say, Attaboy! From The Spectrum:

RYAN PUSATERI - Staff Writer

Jonathan Kozol prides himself on speaking up for those whose voices are stifled in the midst of segregation and discrimination. The poor, the homeless and the underprivileged are groups of people Kozol defends in his candid books.

On Thursday night in Slee Hall, Kozol presented his lecture "Letters to a Young Teacher," based on his book of the same name, to a sold-out crowd.

Kozol, a long-time educator, fights especially hard for an equal opportunity to education for all children. The enthusiastic crowd, consisting of mostly teachers, professors, administrators and prospective educators, was looking for tips and inspiration from Kozol.

Kozol referenced a school principal in his past that changed his point of view forever.

"I like to think of myself as a CEO instead of a principal," said Kozol, reciting a line the principal once told him. Kozol said this kind of perspective hinders the role an administrator plays in students' lives.

"From then on, I knew I had to do something to change education," he said.

Kozol became a teacher at one of the most segregated public schools in Boston in 1965. The Boston School Committee disputed segregation in their schools, leading Kozol to make the public aware of the separation of races. He was eventually fired after reading a poem by Langston Hughes to his fourth grade class.

The entire event was depicted in his early novel Death at an Early Age, he said.

"It's the best thing there is to do in life," Kozol said of teaching.

Throughout the lecture, he reiterated the effect teachers have on students and the responsibility they take on when accepting the role of an educator.

"You should never interrupt a child while they are asking a question because more often than not, a treasure will be found at the end of the run-on sentence," Kozol said. "Value your students as the future of American society."

Segregation in the educational system didn't ended even after Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court case that overturned a previous court ruling allowing segregation in public schools.

Kozol said that research he has conducted found that race and racism are the main difference between inner-city school districts and suburban school districts.

"Schools are more separated now than in 1968," Kozol said. "The separation of quality of schools is leading to the rise of apartheid in the United States of America."

In his lecture, he attacked the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which aims to improve academic performance in U.S. primary and secondary schools through federal programs that raise the standards and expectations for students.

"The NCLB in its entirety is a shaming ritual meant to discredit the idea of public schools," Kozol said.

He explained that the NCLB is a prime example of how the U.S. government is pushing the divide between children who are able to get a good education and those with disadvantages.

"The NCLB is meant to bridge the gap of learning between races, which is good, but the government is doing it the wrong way. They are teaching more privileged children less instead of teaching less privileged children more," he said.

The lecture was part of the 2008-2009 Charlotte C. Acer Colloquium on Urban Education and the UB graduate School of Education Dean's Lecture Series.

Kozol wanted all those in attendance to know that they could make a difference. He explained that students in the American education system need teachers that will react to the times, organize parent support and build support among other educators.

In his lecture, Kozol set guidelines for the educators of our time.

"If you care about what you want to change, then it shouldn't be any trouble attempting to fix the problem," Kozol said.

It was a call to arms against what Kozol sees as the lackluster educational system in America.