Jonathan Kozol
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I beg people not to accept the seasonal ritual of well-timed charity on Christmas Eve. It's blasphemy.
Quote by Jonathan Kozol
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Jonathan Kozol Quotes
I beg people not to accept the seasonal ritual of well-timed charity on Christmas Eve. It's blasphemy.
The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail.
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 accountability, is simply attracting the best-educated, most exciting young people into urban schools and keeping them there.
The primary victims of Katrina, those who were given the least help by the government, those rescued last or not at all, were overwhelmingly people of color largely hidden from the mainstream of society.
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 been set apart and that there's no will in this society to bring you back into the mainstream.
But for the children of the poorest people we're stripping the curriculum, removing the arts and music, and drilling the children into useful labor. We're not valuing a child for the time in which she actually is a child.
The inequalities are greater now than in '92. Some states have equalized per-pupil spending but they set the 'equal level' very low, so that wealthy districts simply raise extra money privately.
No Child Left Behind's fourth-grade gains aren't learning gains, they're testing gains. That's why they don't last. The law is a distraction from things that really count.
So long as these kinds of inequalities persist, all of us who are given expensive educations have to live with the knowledge that our victories are contaminated because the game has been rigged to our advantage.
The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail.
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, great leaders were emerging from the southern freedom movement.
Best Quotes
I always wanted to be honest with myself and to those who have had faith in me.
The serve, I was too young and too small and... not enough powerful to have a good serve when I was young, so my forehand was always my signature shot. So I used to always run around my backhand, you know, use my forehand as much as I could, and so that's why I think it's my strength also today, you know.
I did all the right things in so many tournaments. But like I said, sometimes in sports it just goes the other way. Maybe you've already won so much that it evens it out a bit sometimes. I don't know.
I used to get nervous, you know if my parents would come watch. And then I would get nervous if my friends came and watched. Today it's not a problem anymore actually, because now I enjoy it. I see that they, you know, respect me immensely, and I try to put on a good show and show that I can still play very good tennis.
When I won in 2003, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would win Wimbledon and have my kids seeing me lift the trophy, so this is pretty surreal. And yeah, I was almost shocked in the moment that it all came together so nicely.
Before, I guess, mum and dad were everything, but now, in my case, I had two new girls and all of a sudden they're completely dependent on you and there's a third generation. It's a funny shift all of a sudden. You have the babies, you have yourself and then you have your parents.
My dad said if you become a tennis professional just make sure you get into the top hundred, because you have to make a little bit of money. You make a living so you can pay your coaching and, you know, your travels.
When you do something best in life, you don't really want to give that up - and for me it's tennis.
When there is nothing to talk about don't force yourself to say anything because it may land you in trouble.
It’s crazy how people say, "I rely on facts," And believe thier television sets.
Some people are drawn naturally - there are natural guitarists, and there are natural piano players, and I think guitar implies travel, a sort of footloose gypsy existence. You grab your bag and you go to the next town.
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