so basically this will be my final.
Writing From Your Inner Voice: Rhetoric– At least two quotes from two of the essays from education.
6 sources from the library data base. You need to use a variety of of sources from the library data base. You will need to use quotes from these sources or paraphrase from them. From my college library I’ll send the link
I’ll copy and paste the essay that was done a month ago on this subject please try and improve it.
Ruiz, Nathan
Professor Surenyan
English 101
6/18/24
Jonathan Kozol has been an activist fighting for the rights of oppressed children in American education systems for more than fifty years and has given a voice to these systemized abuses. Reviewing Kozol’s observations based on his career as a teacher and social activist, the author learned about impoverished and racist schooling and teaching institutions. That being said, I completely concur with Jonathan Kozol in his assertion that education in America has not progressed much in the aspect of equality, especially with the differences in funding and resources, which are categorized by race and economic status and the outcomes that have emerged from the set schools.
There are various causes and effects of educational inequity among the population. Still, one of the greatest is the disproportional and rather meager funding that schools currently receive from the state, which greatly depends on the property and tax capacities of the school jurisdictions. As Kozol bluntly states, “We still, after all these years, we still are running an “apartheid” education system in which funding for schools and resources for schools are savagely unequal” (The Brainwaves Video Anthology 0:46-1:04). Schools in well-off white suburban neighborhood receive a lot of property taxes. They are, therefore, able to attract the right teachers, have clean classrooms and facilities, and provide the right environment, curriculum, and co-curricular activities. At the same time, schools in concentrated low-income, urban areas, those with high populations of black and Latino students, suffer from crumbling buildings, outdated curricula, and limited resources. This creates two tiers of schools that Kozol refers to as “a bitterly unequal system—separate and unequal.”
In addition to the issue of funding disparity, public schools in America have been observed to have more racial and socioeconomic segregation in the recent past. Again, the idea was never effectively fulfilled throughout the Civil Rights movement and subsequent school desegregation of the 1950s-1960s. Kozol laments that “our public schools, by and large, are more segregated racially today than they were back in 1968, the year that Dr. King was taken from us” (The Brainwaves Video Anthology 2:22-2:32). Schools today often reflect the de facto segregation of neighborhoods, with students of color disproportionately concentrated in high-poverty urban schools, while white and Asian students are overrepresented in more advantaged suburban schools. Research has consistently shown that integration benefits all students, yet most American children attend schools segregated by race and class.
These disparities in school funding and student bodies align with troubling gaps in educational achievement and attainment. Children from low-income schools and other people of color prove to have lower mean standardized tests compared to their wealthier and white counterparts. They also get lower levels of completion for high school, college entrance, and postsecondary education. As William Serrata, President of El Paso Community College, warns, “If you look at from the depths of the Great Recession in 2008 until pre-pandemic, we saw about 12 million new jobs that were created in the nation. And of those 12 million new jobs, about 99 percent went to individuals with degrees and certificates. Only about 80,000 jobs nationally went to individuals with a high school diploma or less… My fears are that the pandemic will wipe those gains out” (Brookings Institution 10:08-10:36). If education is the great equalizer, disparities in access to quality schooling entrench societal stratification.
The entrenched inequalities in America’s education system can be further illuminated by examining the problematic premises underlying some attempts at reform. For example, the No Child Left Behind Act was fundamentally about maintaining social control and producing a compliant populace, not truly equipping all children for success (Teachings in Education). John Taylor Gatto argues that “school is expected to accelerate natural selection by tagging the unfit so clearly that’s what all those little humiliations from first grade on that’s what all the posted list of ranked grades are about so clearly that the unfit will drop from the reproduction sweepstakes” (44connected 5:09-5:31). By this logic, an overemphasis on standardized testing and sorting students serves to reinforce, rather than remedy, educational inequities along the lines of race and class.
The inequalities in America’s education system documented by Jonathan Kozol decades ago remain very much evident today. A child’s Zip code and family background still predict the funding schools get, enrolment of students and eventually their educational performances and life chances. It has become more important than ever to ensure that education delivers on its potential as a means to overcome structural marginalization at a time when income inequality is on the rise. Finally, it is the responsibility of the policymakers and the public to address the discrepancies in education through proportional and fair funding systems for schools, integration of schools and students, and giving due support to the needful and deserving learners. As Kozol argues, until we create a system of “equitable” education, “we will be an incomplete democracy” (The Brainwaves Video Anthology 1:48-1:53). America’s children deserve no less than the fair opportunity for high-quality education, regardless of race or class.
Works Cited
Brookings Institution. “How the COVID-19 Pandemic Has Impacted Higher Education.” YouTube, 17 Mar. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh2TCLoEzkk. Accessed 18 June 2024.
Teachings in Education. “No Child Left Behind: Explained & Summarized.” YouTube, 19 Sept. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=0–2nhsDorg. Accessed 18 June 2024.
The Brainwaves Video Anthology. “Jonathan Kozol – Savage Inequalities.” YouTube, 23 Dec. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6wCsAXmjdI. Accessed 18 June 2024.
44connected. “John Taylor Gatto – the Purpose of Schooling.” YouTube, 30 Mar. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEWPbTad_Q. Accessed 18 June 2024.
