In public schooling, social policy has been turned back almost one hundred years. — Jonathan Kozol Education Copy Share Image
No human being who wants to read and own a book should ever have to go on a bended knee to get… — Jonathan Kozol Being Copy Share Image
I hope to be remembered for writing books about social justice that also have enough aesthetic value to endure as works of… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
Our nation's oldest sin and deepest crime is the isolation of minority children - black children, in particular - in schools that… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
If you grow up in the South Bronx today or in south-central Los Angeles or Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, you quickly come to… — Jonathan Kozol Bronx Copy Share Image
When I was teaching in the 1960s in Boston, there was a great deal of hope in the air. Martin Luther King… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
Childhood is not merely basic training for utilitarian adulthood. It should have some claims upon our mercy, not for its future value… — Jonathan Kozol Adulthood Copy Share Image
Governor Romney has said nothing about preschool. I think that giving the poorest kids in America wonderful preschool, and three years of… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
The recklessness with which we sacrifice our sense of decency to maximize profit in the factory farming process sets a pattern for… — Jonathan Kozol Animal Copy Share Image
No Child Left Behind widens the gap between the races more than any piece of educational legislation I've seen in 40 years.… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
“Research experts want to know what can be done about the values of poor segregated children; and this is a question that… — Jonathan Kozol Children Copy Share Image
“Unless we have the wealth to pay for private education, we are compelled by law to go to public school—and to the… — Jonathan Kozol Education Copy Share Image
“We should invest in kids like these," we're told, "because it will be more expensive not to." Why do our natural compassion… — Jonathan Kozol Children Copy Share Image
Let's concede that we have decided to let our children grow up in two separate nations, and lead two separate kinds of… — Jonathan Kozol Activist Copy Share Image
“Conservatives are generally the ones who speak more passionately of patriotic values. They are often the first to rise up to protest… — Jonathan Kozol Conservatives Copy Share Image
The rich...should beg the poor to forgive us for the bread we bring them. Healthy people sometimes feel they need to beg… — Jonathan Kozol Asking for forgiveness Copy Share Image
As damaging as the obsessive emphasis on testing often proves to be for kids in general, I believe that the effects are… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
By far the most important factor in the success or failure of any school, far more important than tests or standards or… — Jonathan Kozol Accountability Copy Share Image
But for the children of the poorest people we're stripping the curriculum, removing the arts and music, and drilling the children into… — Jonathan Kozol Art Copy Share Image
The primary victims of Katrina, those who were given the least help by the government, those rescued last or not at all,… — Jonathan Kozol Color Copy Share Image
Consider what it is like to go into a new classroom and to see before you suddenly, and in a way you… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
The first goal and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
“I find I like to talk with her as often as I can. It feels to me as if I'm standing with… — Jonathan Kozol Courage Copy Share Image
So long as these kinds of inequalities persist, all of us who are given expensive educations have to live with the knowledge… — Jonathan Kozol Advantage Copy Share Image
Unlike these powerful grown-ups, children have no ideologies to reinforce, no superstructure of political opinion to promote, no civic equanimity or image… — Jonathan Kozol Child Copy Share Image
The inequalities are greater now than in '92. Some states have equalized per-pupil spending but they set the 'equal level' very low,… — Jonathan Kozol Districts Copy Share Image
Well, teachers have been profoundly demoralized in recent years and are often treated with contempt by politicians. There's a great deal of… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
The first ten, twelve or fifteen years of life are excavated of inherent moral worth in order to accommodate a regimen of… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
In the book, I write about children in first grade who were taught to read by reading want ads. They learned to… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
Many of those who argue for vouchers say that they simply want to use competition to improve public education. I don't think… — Jonathan Kozol Competition Copy Share Image
Instead of seeing these children for the blessings that they are, we are measuring them only by the standard of whether they… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
No matter what happens in a child's home, no matter what other social and economic factors may impede a child, there's no… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
Hypersegregated inner-city schools - in which one finds no more than five or ten white children, at the very most, within a… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
Our political establishment refuses to use the word 'segregated.' They call the schools diverse, which means half black, half Hispanic, and maybe… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now… — Jonathan Kozol Alive Copy Share Image
Political struggle is the most important thing any of us can do as a citizen in a democracy; and that means the… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
If you could lead through testing, the U.S. would lead the world in all education categories. When are people going to understand… — Jonathan Kozol Copy Share Image
Childhood ought to have at least a few entitlements that aren't entangled with utilitarian considerations. One of them should be the right… — Jonathan Kozol Child Copy Share Image
“A dream does not die on it's own. A dream is vanquished by the choices ordinary people make about real things in… — Jonathan Kozol Dream Copy Share Image
Even if you never do anything about this, you've benefited from an unjust system. You're already the winner in a game that… — Jonathan Kozol Advantage Copy Share Image
