Education and Sustainable Communities - Essay Example

This is an indication of the fact that sustainability through education is yet to be achieved in the United States. In his article, Kozol indicates that there is a great disparity between the urban and suburban schools. The White schools have been given a lot of attention unlike the Black and Hispanic schools. This, he explains that, in America, segregation might have been minimized as a result of a court decree making the entire education system equal, but the fact remains that inequality is still prevalent in the educational system.

He continues to argue that public schools in America are separate, an indication of the inequality that persists in America’s educational system. The suburban schools comprise of white students who are given high quality education unlike in the urban schools that comprise of Blacks and Hispanic students. In Kozol’s point of view, it is unjust to discriminate learners on the basis of their races. In these conditions, he argues that education does not sustain communities. This can be proven from Kozol (pp.581) where he interviews an American learner on the place of other races in the country, where the girl responds passionately that the country would be in a far much better position without the other races.

In the article, Kozol portrays the view that, despite the fact that discrimination is prohibited in America, many schools still hold the perspective that the white race is still superior to the blacks. So as to prove his point, Kozol brings out a practical perspective of the populace of the inner schools being filled with great percentages of the Blacks and very few Whites. Kozol (pp.579) is quoted to indicate that, ‘97 percent of the populace in New York’s Adlai Stevenson School are Blacks and Hispanics, one percent comprises of the Whites.

’ From these statistics, it is evident that inequalities exist in the American schools despite the fact that the law required discrimination be abolished. The statistics provided in Kozol’s work portray the aspect of discrimination that persists in the country and the fact that integration is yet to be achieved in the education system. Kozol (pp. 581) indicates that in a majority of the cities, many persons do not want to attests to the fact that, the schools in their states are yet to be integrated.

This is evidenced from his quote, on a school in Missouri, ‘the school is inclusive of children of diverse backgrounds’ yet the school had a 99.6 percent African- American children. In this case, therefore, the author openly criticizes the educational system in America. The children from the privileged families have had the opportunity to attend good schools while the less privileged have no option but to fit in any school that they land. As a result of poverty among certain groups of people in the society, the role of sustainability of education in America has not promoted sustainability among the communities in America.

In this case the economic disparities have been credited for the causes of differences in the school attendance. From Kozol’s (pp. 585) quote, ‘there are expensive and cheap children’, it is clear how disparities exist in the American society. Poverty stricken communities have no option but to take their children in schools that are low class rated, and the cycle continues to revolve; making it extremely difficult to emancipate these children from poverty levels