Jonathan Kozol

A Tale of Two Jonathans When I was a young child, my elementary school years were packed with fun times, learning, and promise. I was always discovering exciting new things, meeting interesting new friends, and enjoying being a generally happy child. My school, Beryl Heights Elementary, an accredited school, met or exceeded all of the standards set forth by those in power, and as an institute of learning, would teach me the skills needed to become a productive citizen. While the aforementioned sounds like a great deal, could there possibly be a sinister aspect to all of it? What about the school body? I was a happy, young Mexican boy amidst a snow White ocean of students, lightly peppered with “people of color”, as is the popular term. Jonathan Kozol believed this to be so, and although our method of observation of school systems was different, we both discovered a shockingly similar situation. As a member of an economic majority yet supposed racial minority, I feel Mr. Kozol was correct in his belief of an “educational apartheid.“. Visiting various elementary schools (in places where the majority of schools had creative names like “P.S. 165”) Jonathan Kozol obtained the material to write his essay, “Still Separate, Still Unequal”. Mr. Kozol wrote that while on the surface, it may look like, on the subject of integration in schools, we have come a long way, the reality is that we are really no better off than we were 50 years ago. I, being an elementary school student in an upper-middle class city, observed the advantages of affluence. Constant field trips, fun and interesting school assemblies (at 7 years old, who doesn’t want to see how science can be fun or an acrobat performance?), and a grand finale camping trip in 6th grade to celebrate our “graduation.” The perks were endless, and after asking my neighborhood friends about their schools, I learned that not all schools were like mine. I went to Beryl Heights Elementary on a permit as I lived in the City of Hawthorne, where the median family income was about a third of that of the average Redondo Beach citizen. After learning that none of the kids on my block went to field trips, had fun assemblies, or enjoyed a slice of cake served with lunch on Fridays, I began to wonder why this could be, and after Moci, a friend of mine, said to me one night while were playing video games, “My momma said it‘s ‘cause I‘m black“, the answer became clear to me.. Jonathan Kozol received a letter from a third grade student in the Bronx. The letter read, “Dear Mr. Kozol, we do not have the things you have. You have a clean bathroom. We do not have that. You have Parks and we do not have Parks. You have all the thing and we do not have all the thing. Can you help us?” Around the time of receipt of this letter, Jonathan Kozol learned that New York’s Board of Education spent about $8,000 a year on the education of a third grade student in a New York City public school, conversely, a student in a wealthy suburb of New York received $10,000 more of an education. Both Mr. Kozol and I learned that schools in more considerably downtrodden areas were far less cared for than those in the cleaner, Whiter cities and suburbs. During my high school years, I attended two separate, both geographically and economically, high schools. During my “Freshman” and “Sophomore” high school years, I attended A.B. Miller High School in Fontana, California. A.B. Miller, nestled in the Inland Empire, a region of California about 80 miles east of Los Angeles is far, at least proportionately in the physical sense, from the laid back beach lifestyle of my alma mater, Redondo Union High School. Mr. Kozol wrote in his essay that, “At Beverly Hills High School, for example, the technical arts requirement could be fulfilled by taking subjects like advanced computer graphics… broadcast journalism… or an honors course in engineering research and design” whereas at Fremont High School in Los Angeles, Kozol stated, “…this requirement was far more often met by courses that were basically vocational and also obviously keyed to low-paying levels of employment.” While at A.B. Miller, I noticed that many of the optional courses required for graduation (a rather well crafted idea) were comprised of an “Automotive Technology” course (mechanic training, basically), Home Economics (cooking and cleaning skills, perfect for any Hispanic student that wanted to be part of a tired stereotype), and even a “Construction Technology” (a class that taught students skills such as how to properly use a hammer, or hang a light fixture, no joke, I took the class.) While at Redondo Union, I took the “Construction Technology” class offered there as well and was quite surprised that it focused more on architectural design as a supplement to the “Drafting” courses offered at the school. It was then that the seed of my speculation sprouted, and I remembered the old saying, “Location, Location, Location!”, verily, this could be applied to education as well. Both Jonathan Kozol and I discovered that education is based on location. Through our individual quests for the truth, different as they were, we both came to the conclusion that in some cases, even though the idea is thrown around like so many pop up ads on the internet, segregation still runs rampant in this country. With both a Harvard degree and an Oxford education, one could safely say that Jonathan Kozol is a well educated man, I on the other hand, am merely starting my journey of higher education. Both of us however, through our experiences have a connection threaded with our critical nature. If there is one thing I am sure of about our educational system, it is that we are long overdue for change.