Educational, Economical and Societal Segregation
In 1954 a landmark decision was made in the United States Supreme Court. Changing its beliefs from the outcome of the Plessy vs. Ferguson case in 1896, which stated that "separate, but equal" facilities could be used for schooling blacks and whites, the Supreme Court declared that separate schooling facilities were unjust. Although most schools today are integrated, they still show major signs of segregation and inequality. Such acts, like the No Child Left Behind Act, only further discrimination among students in the United States. In the words of Jonathan Kozol, "They are confections of apartheid, and no matter by what arguments of urgency or practicality they have been justified, they cannot fail to further deepen the divisions of society" (2007, p. 29). The situation depicted is not only how the wealthy in society become wealthier and rule the schools, but also how the poor get unjustly punished for their unfortunate circumstances. Kozol's usage of the term apartheid to describe the educational system in the United States is definitely harsh, yet not drastically off track. On their own, income, ethnic diversity, and parental emphasis on education have small effects in creating educational apartheid, but in conjunction with one another they leave the majority of wealthy, over privileged students successful and the poorer minorities feeling discouraged, unimportant and discriminated against.
It is no secret that the wealthy have more opportunities to succeed than they do to fail, so why must they try to deny the fact that they have it easier than the poor? As stated in the Sack’s article, "They [the wealthy] denied that they had any particular advantages and blamed the working-class and poor students and their families for not measuring up" (2007, p. 34). The prosperous continue to act naive about the poverty surrounding them despite their many attempts to justify why the school system is the way it is in...