Jonathan Kozol (born September 5, 1936) is a American writer, educator, and activist. best known for his books on public education in the United States. Read full biography of Jonathan Kozol →
In schools with a history of chaos, the teacher who can keep the classroom calm becomes virtually indispensable.
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... →
Apartheid does not happen spontaneously, like bad weather conditions.
Racial segregation has come back to public education with a vengeance.
Businessmen are not in business to lose customers, and schools do not exist to free their clients from the agencies of mass persuasion. School and... →
When I was teaching in the 1960s in Boston, there was a great deal of hope in the air. Martin Luther King Jr. was alive, Malcolm X was alive; great... →
During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially.... →
No matter what happens in a child's home, no matter what other social and economic factors may impede a child, there's no question in my mind... →
President Obama still places far too much emphasis on relentless testing with standardized exams.
I think a moment of critical energy has suddenly emerged. But moments like this come and go unless we seize them at their height.
Our nation's oldest sin and deepest crime is the isolation of minority children - black children, in particular - in schools that are not only... →
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
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... →