Instead of seeing these children for the blessings that they are, we are measuring them only by the standard of whether they will be future deficits or assets for our nation's competitive needs. Jonathan Kozol More Quotes by Jonathan Kozol More Quotes From Jonathan Kozol You need massive recruitment to tell the poorest of the poor what is possible. Jonathan Kozol massive poor needs The answers I remember longest are the ones that answer questions that I didn't think of asking. Jonathan Kozol asking answers thinking President Obama still places far too much emphasis on relentless testing with standardized exams. Jonathan Kozol exam too-much president Well, teachers have been profoundly demoralized in recent years and are often treated with contempt by politicians. There's a great deal of reckless rhetoric in Washington about the mediocrity of the teaching profession - and I don't find that to be true at all. Jonathan Kozol teaching teacher years If you grow up in the South Bronx today or in south-central Los Angeles or Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, you quickly come to understand that you have been set apart and that there's no will in this society to bring you back into the mainstream. Jonathan Kozol pittsburgh philadelphia growing-up At that time, I had recently finished a book called Amazing Grace, which many people tell me is a very painful book to read. Well, if it was painful to read, it was also painful to write. I had pains in my chest for two years while I was writing that book. Jonathan Kozol pain writing book But for the children of the poorest people we're stripping the curriculum, removing the arts and music, and drilling the children into useful labor. We're not valuing a child for the time in which she actually is a child. Jonathan Kozol children people art 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. Jonathan Kozol college ideas school It is a commonplace by now to say that the urban school systems of America contain a higher percentage of Negro children each year. Jonathan Kozol children years school We know that segregation is evil. We know that the sickest children should not go to the worst hospitals. Jonathan Kozol segregation evil children I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations Jonathan Kozol expectations challenges lows There has been so much recent talk of progress in the areas of curriculum innovation and textbook revision that few people outside the field of teaching understand how bad most of our elementary school materials still are. Jonathan Kozol teaching people school The first ten, twelve or fifteen years of life are excavated of inherent moral worth in order to accommodate a regimen of basic training for the adult years that many of the poorest children may not even live to know. Jonathan Kozol order children years The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail. Jonathan Kozol new-york teacher children What I tell these young people is, the world is not as dangerous as the older generation would like you to believe. Anyone I know who has ever taken a risk and lost a job has ended up getting a better one two years later. Jonathan Kozol taken jobs believe A culture in which guilt is automatically assumed to be neurotic and unhealthy has devised a remarkably clever way of protecting its self-interest. Jonathan Kozol guilt self clever If there are amazing graces on this earth, I believe that they are these good children sent to us by God and not yet soiled by the knowledge that their nation does not love them. Jonathan Kozol grace believe children When I was young, I was religious. Jonathan Kozol religious young We continue, however, to write about important people, prize-winning people, blacks of grandeur, women of great fire, fame or wit. We do not write about ordinary people. Jonathan Kozol educational winning writing Let's concede that we have decided to let our children grow up in two separate nations, and lead two separate kinds of lives. If, on the other hand, we have the courage to rise to this challenge to name what's happening within our inner-city schools, then we also need the courage to be activist and go out and fight like hell to change it. Jonathan Kozol growing-up children school
