Quotes by Jonathan Kozol

About Jonathan Kozol:

Jonathan Kozol is an American writer, educator, and activist. best known for his books on public education in the United States.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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 your advantage from the start.

Jonathan Kozol

I think a lot of people don't have any idea of how deeply segregated our schools have become all over again. Most textbooks are not honest in what they teach our high school students.

Jonathan Kozol

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 never have the thrill of victory.

Jonathan Kozol

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.

Jonathan Kozol

Apartheid does not happen spontaneously, like bad weather conditions.

Jonathan Kozol

I think a moment of critical energy has suddenly emerged. But moments like this come and go unless we seize them at their height.

Jonathan Kozol

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 6-year-olds who have to struggle with potato balls.

Jonathan Kozol

Our nation's oldest sin and deepest crime is the isolation of minority children - black children, in particular - in schools that are not only segregated but shamefully unequal.

Jonathan Kozol

President Obama still places far too much emphasis on relentless testing with standardized exams.

Jonathan Kozol

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 us what needs to be 'fixed' - I hate such a mechanistic word, as if our schools were automobile engi...

Jonathan Kozol

The cause of homelessness is lack of housing.

Jonathan Kozol

There has been so much recent talk of progress in the areas of curriculum innovation and textbook revision that few people outside the field of teaching understand how bad most of our elementary school materials still are.

Jonathan Kozol

Wonderful teachers should never let themselves be drill sergeants for the state.

Jonathan Kozol

I once made a check of all books in my fourth-grade classroom. Of the slightly more than six hundred books, almost one quarter had been published prior to the bombing of Hiroshima; 60 percent were either ten years old or older.

Jonathan Kozol

Schooling should not be left to the whim or wealth of village elders. I believe that we should fund all schools in the U.S. with our national resources. All these kids are being educated to be Americans, not citizens of Minneapolis or San Francisco.

Jonathan Kozol

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 equal; neither of these things is true.

Jonathan Kozol

I encourage teachers to speak in their own voices. Don't use the gibberish of the standards writers.

Jonathan Kozol

The answers I remember longest are the ones that answer questions that I didn't think of asking.

Jonathan Kozol

We know that segregation is evil. We know that the sickest children should not go to the worst hospitals.

Jonathan Kozol

The 'niche' effect of charter schools guarantees a swift and vicious deepening of class and racial separation.

Jonathan Kozol

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.

Jonathan Kozol

Author Bio

  • NameJonathan Kozol
  • DescriptionAmerican activist and educator
  • BornSeptember 5, 1936
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAuthor
  • AwardsNational Book Award; Conscience-in-Media Award