Equality and equal opportunity are two terms that have changed or have been redefined over the last 100 years in America. The fathers of our constitution wanted to establish justice and secure liberty for the people of the United States. They wrote about freedom and equality for men, but historically it has not been practiced. In the twentieth century large steps have been made to make the United States practice the ideals declared in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The major changes following Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her bus seat to a young white man and the Brown v.
Board of Education trial in 1954. These Supreme Court rulings altered American society and began the desegregation and integration movements. In the 1950’s many writers took interest in writing about segregation, desegregation, integration and black history in general. Many historians write about segregation still existing today and the problems in which integration never had the chance to correct. Many works about desegregation were written in the years to follow, was it a good idea and would it last? Murray Friedman, Roger Meltzer and Charles Miller put a collection of essays together in the mid 70’s discussing integration and the many different views pertaining to desegregation in its first fifteen years.
Major changes have taken place in American lives that have not been fully absorbed in our thinking that cause confusion and bitterness. The authors agree that the original goal of civil rights forces was the dismantling of school systems segregated under law, despite the strong resistance, was successful in some places. Pennsylvania is one state that issued programs to integrate schools that were successful. Another topic addressed in New Perspectives on School Integration is the study of ethnic groups in schools. At the time programs only study the present or dominant ethnic group at a specific school. It changes from school to school rather than teaching of many different American groups.
The Report on Change of State of Matter
REVIEW: Matter - anything that has mass and takes up space States of Matter: solid, liquid, gas, plasma Solid - has definite shape, definite volume (ex. Rock) Liquid - has indefinite shape, definite volume (ex. water) Gas - has indefinite shape, indefinite volume (ex. air) PHASES! CHANGES OF STATE OF MATTER: * When something such as water turns from being water to being ice, it is called a change ...
The goal in teaching American ethnic culture should include a wide range of content. If schools were to teach all to every child, no matter their race, it would benefit and prepare students whom will be entering an integrated society instead of a desegregated society. Desegregation effects on the achievements of black and white students show improvement. James Coleman conducted a study, which proved desegregation benefits black children. By integrating schools poor minority children in predominantly all white schools produce better standardized test scores. Desegregation would improve the performance of blacks without lowering that of whites.
Friedman, Meltzer and Miller agree that the presence of improvement does not happen uniformly among integrated schools. While Ian M. Harris writes about the Coleman study in his Criteria for Evaluating school desegregation in Milwaukee, and believes that the improvement always takes place when schools are desegregated. According to Harris certain requirements that schools and policies should meet if they are to aid in integration. There must be equality in school desegregation for all races and the burden of responsibility falls on all races and not just one. Further, fairness must bee practiced when giving demands and benefits to students.
For desegregation to be successful integration must be the result. One of Harris’s strong arguments is about the “forced voluntary” strategy for desegregation. This system to desegregate places the burden on black parents and children. There must be a racial balance in the system of administrators, teachers and role models for black students. When desegregating schools Harris says bus sing is not the answer. Rather “forced voluntary” is the way of action.
The Essay on Is School Bad For Children?
Education has always been an intense topic of discussion among many cultures and different groups of people. For many years it was believed that without formal structured education, academic success couldn’t be achieved. Today that idea has been challenged and proved invalid by homeschooling, online classes and alternative learning of all sorts. In the article,”School is Bad for Children,” ...
Allowing students to choose which schools they would like to attend instead of making them go to a specific school lets them feel like they had a choice in the matter. This leaves way for integration to occur and not just desegregation. Magnet schools are another technique used to fix the problem of segregation in schools. Magnet schools were designed and opened specifically to facilitate desegregation in cities. Harris writes that the magnet programs main cause has been defeated because the very children they were supposed to help it never reached. Magnet schools failed to integrate blacks into equal education because the slots for them were given to white children.
There were not enough positions for the students who wanted them and left many black children school less. A little less then ten years after Harris’s work Jonathan Kozol wrote Savage Inequalities which held the same opinions. Kozol describes inner city schools almost forty years after desegregation began and it is shocking to discover very little has changed. Kozol like Harris supports the argument that magnet schools are helping further segregation.
When whites left the cities, blacks were left behind in the slums of the inner city. In the United States school funding comes from property taxes and when a majority of middle class whites left the cities for suburban life the money for school funding also left. Property prices took a huge price cut and so did the education of inner city children. Harris explains the difficulty blacks have getting into magnet school designed for them in 1983, while Kozol discusses the same thing still occurring ten years later. Kozol believes that magnet schools from the beginning were designed to keep education segregated.
Kozol’s writings are shocking and painfully truthful. When reading his works it is hard to believe that segregation still exists today and to these extremes. Kozol spends his time visiting inner city schools to see how the poor children in America live and make it through school. “An ugly metaphor of filth and over spill and chemical effusions, a place where blacks live and die within, a place for other people to avoid when they are heading for St.
The Essay on Savage Inequalities Schools Kozol Kids
... American system. Focusing on the discrepancy in resources between schools that are predominantly Black or Latino (usually inner city) and schools ... December 8, 1953), which supposedly mandated the desegregation of schools in America. Towns close enough to easily ... Jonathan Kozol In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol describes the conditions of several of America's public schools. Kozol visited schools ...
Louis.” Kozol brings this kind of reality to his findings and shows the slums of American inner cities as they are. Unlike the other writers Kozol brings the stories of the children, parents and school officials to light. Friedman, Meltzer, Miller, and Harris talk about desegregation and how to make it work and different ways to change it. Kozol goes into the cities where their plans were designed to work and points out that desegregation was never fixed and poor minority children still live separated from equality and opportunity.
Today there are many works about the desegregation and integration of American schools. Authors write about the American Dilemma, black and white racial inequalities. Albert M. Samuels wrote about the American Dilemma in his book Black Colleges and the Challenge to Desegregation. The United States was founded on principles of equality, liberty and the right to exercise them freely. In the Constitution the ideals of the American Creed have thus become the highest law of the land.
Kozol also describes the American Dilemma and brings it to life for his readers. The values of the American Creed have historically not extended on a equal basis. The fallacy lies in the ideals of American foundations, if Americans would live up to the lofty ideals, then the race problem in the United States would disappear. Segregating still does exist today and will keep living until we are able to go into cities and change their education program and make funding and instruction equal. Bibliography Friedman, M.
, R. Meltzer, C. Miller. New Perspectives on School Integration. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979 Harris, Ian M. Criteria for Evaluating School Desegregation in Milwaukee.
The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Autumn, 1983), 423-435. Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools.
New York, New York: Crown Publishers Inc. , 1992. Samuels, Albert L. , Black Colleges and the Challenge to Desegregation. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
