All Jonathan Kozol Quotes
- I encourage teachers to speak in their own voices. Don't use the gibberish of the standards writers. Encourage
- Wonderful teachers should never let themselves be drill sergeants for the state. Drill
- The ones I pity are the ones who never stick out their neck for something they believe, never know the taste of moral struggle, and… Believe
- 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… America
- Even if you never do anything about this, you've benefited from an unjust system. You're already the winner in a game that was rigged to… Advantage
- 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… Art
- 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,… Amazing
- Children are not simply commodities to be herded into line and trained for the jobs that white people who live in segregated neighborhoods have available. Available
- I emphasize teachers because they are largely left out of the debate. None of the bombastic reports that come from Washington and think tanks telling… Asks
- The greatest difference between now and 1964, when I began teaching, is that public policy has pretty much eradicated the dream of Martin Luther King. Began
- 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… All
- A culture in which guilt is automatically assumed to be neurotic and unhealthy has devised a remarkably clever way of protecting its self-interest. Assumed
- President Obama still places far too much emphasis on relentless testing with standardized exams. Emphasis
- Separate and unequal didn't work 100 years ago. It will not work today. Ago
- The answers I remember longest are the ones that answer questions that I didn't think of asking. Answer
- You need massive recruitment to tell the poorest of the poor what is possible. Inspirational
- Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United… Alive
- By far the most important factor in the success or failure of any school, far more important than tests or standards or business-model methods of… Accountability
- People rarely speak of children; you hear of 'cohort groups' and 'standard variations,' but you don't hear much of boys who miss their cats or… Balls
- Apartheid does not happen spontaneously, like bad weather conditions. Apartheid
- I am opposed to the use of public funds for private education. Education
- I think a moment of critical energy has suddenly emerged. But moments like this come and go unless we seize them at their height. Critical
- It is a commonplace by now to say that the urban school systems of America contain a higher percentage of Negro children each year. America
- Racial segregation has come back to public education with a vengeance. Come Back
- We know that segregation is evil. We know that the sickest children should not go to the worst hospitals. Children