At that time, I had recently finished a book called Amazing Grace, which many people tell me is a very painful book to read. Well, if it was painful to read, it was also painful to write. I had pains in my chest for two years while I was writing that book.

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.

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.

Jonathan Kozol Quotes