No Child Left Behinds fourth-grade gains arent learning gains, theyre testing gains. Thats why they dont last. The law is a distraction from things that really count. – Jonathan Kozol
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. – Jonathan Kozol
A great deal has been written in recent years about the purported lack of motivation in the children of the Negro ghettos. Little in my experience supports this, yet the phrase has been repeated endlessly, and the blame in almost all cases is placed somewhere outside the classroom. – Jonathan Kozol
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. – Jonathan Kozol