Fire in the Ashes: Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America

by Jonathan Kozol

  000 profit-making firms that offered a degree or some other document: Information on the Technical Career Institute’s degrees, courses, tuition, and admission is available in the TCI Catalog for 2010–11, which indicates the cost of $5,960 per semester for a two-year program to obtain an associate degree or certificate. The catalog’s final item under the heading “Admissions”—a well-obscured paragraph preceded by immunization specifications for enrollment—states the school’s graduation rate, “in accordance with the federal Student Right-to-Know reporting and disclosure requirements as well as the New York State Regents Accreditation Standards.” In August of 2009, “163 of the 859 students (19.0 percent)” who had enrolled in the fall of 2006 “had graduated or completed their program of study within 150 percent of the normal time to completion.”

  000 warnings to potential applicants: The complaints cited were posted to the consumer website RipoffReport.com on March 26 and October 26, 2009, September 29 and November 11, 2010.

  000 the prison runs a number of education programs: A spokesperson for the New York City Department of Corrections verified to me (August 8, 2011) that the prison continues to offer Adult Basic Education and preparation for the GED. For younger inmates, Rikers runs its education programs through the East River Academy, part of District 79—“Alternative Schools and Programs”—of New York City’s public schools.

  CHAPTER 13: NUMBER OUR DAYS

  000 Benjamin’s sister was permitted to attend her mother’s wake but not her funeral: Whether or not an inmate in New York is allowed to visit the deathbed or attend the wake or funeral of a close family member is decided at the discretion of the superintendant of the prison where the inmate is held. See New York State Department of Correctional Services, “Handbook for the Families and Friends of New York State DOCS Inmates,” December 2007.

  000 questions about Martha’s predecessor at St. Ann’s: The man who’d been the “interim priest” later wrote to me and shared with me his strong belief that the reason he had been suspended was political. He spoke in terms of “oppressor” and “oppressed” and referred to the writings of a man we both admired, the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who, he knew, had been my friend and mentor. I appreciated his attempt to explain things to me from his point of view. It was a thoughtful letter. I felt that he was reaching out to me for my support. At the same time, I knew that Paulo Freire, whom I’d met in Mexico in 1968 and with whom I had a deep and personal attachment in the ensuing years, would never have allowed himself, or have encouraged his followers, to demonize a woman on the basis of her race or gender. Freire’s personal behavior was consistent with his principles and politics, which were characterized above all else by a capacious generosity.

  EPILOGUE

  000 new houses in Mott Haven sell for upwards of $200,000: Some of these houses were already selling for $185,000 in 1997 (New York Times, November 2, 1997). In spite of two recessions, $200,000 might be too conservative an estimate after fourteen years. (One real estate website indicates that a number of these houses in Mott Haven were valued at $350,000 or more in December 2011.)

  000 “it has that feeling of something about to happen to it”: “Potential Awaits Its Moment,” New York Times, September 2, 2011. Mott Haven and surrounding neighborhoods have long been the subjects of optimistic press reports. See, for example, “Slouching Toward Utopia in the South Bronx,” New York Times, December 5, 1993; “A South Bronx Very Different from the Cliché,” New York Times, February 14, 1999; and “Goodbye South Bronx Blight, Hello Trendy SoBro,” New York Times, June 24, 2005.

  000 the South Bronx remains the poorest congressional district in the nation: The 16th Congressional District incorporates the entire South Bronx and a few additional sections of the Bronx. The district’s boundaries are given on the website of U.S. Representative José Serrano, under the heading, “Our District” (December 2011). As of the latest census, this district is still the poorest in the nation, with a poverty rate of 38 percent (New York Daily News, September 29, 2010).

  000 the median household income in the South Bronx is less than $24,000: The figure, as determined by the United States Bureau of the Census in 2010, is $23,773 for the 16th Congressional District.

  000 in Mott Haven, median household income is less than $17,000: The City of New York’s “Community District Needs” report for the Bronx, Fiscal Year 2011, cited in note for chapter 2, p. 00, places the present figure in Mott Haven at $16,800.

  000 the federally established poverty level for a household of five people: Poverty levels from the Federal Register, current as of January 20, 2011, are provided on the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the heading “Poverty Guidelines, Research, and Measurement.”

  000 12.6 percent unemployment in the Bronx: The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which updates statistics monthly on its website, gives the 12.6 percent unemployment rate for Bronx County as of November 2011. New York City as a whole has a rate of 9.1 percent for the same month.

  000 more than 300 people show up for jobs at sneaker store: New York Post, September 11, 2011.

  000 unemployment figure understates the jobless rates in poorer areas: The Bureau of Labor Statistics, cited above, does not break down its numbers below the city or county level, making corresponding figures unavailable at district and neighborhood levels—which is one reason, among many, why consistent unemployment numbers for the South Bronx are not easy to pin down. As long ago as 1997, the New York Times estimated unemployment at 45 percent (November 2, 1997). More recently, the New York Daily News calculated the unemployment rate within three South Bronx housing projects at 51 percent (November 25, 2011). The United States Bureau of the Census, meanwhile, in its 2010 American Community Survey, calculates the figure for the South Bronx to be 19.2 percent.

  000 “discouraged workers” not included in unemployment figures: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, people who “want and are available for work, and who have looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months,” are not counted among the unemployed if they have not “searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey. … Discouraged workers were not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them or there were none for which they would qualify.” For this and other information as to who is counted, or not counted, as part of the labor force, I have relied on the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as updated on November 17, 2011. (See under heading “Labor Force Characteristics.”)

  000 stories published on drug dealers in the Bronx and East Harlem drug lord: New York Daily News, June 18, 2011.

  000 son of St. Ann’s education director shot and killed: The boy was shot in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. See New York Daily News, September 22, 2011.

  000 Jeremy describes new mall in South Bronx: The mall, which is near the 149th Street Bridge, just off an expressway, is called the Gateway Center.

  000 government official says “conditions … were horrendous” in Diego-Beekman complex: Village Voice, December 14, 1999. Some of the other details on the termination of Continental Wingate’s ownership were reported in the New York Times, March 31, 1999.

  000 transfer of ownership to a nonprofit corporation representing interests of the tenants and subsequent changes in the Diego-Beekmans: I’ve relied primarily on Reverend Martha Overall’s chronology of these events, her balanced assessment of improvements in the buildings, and my own on-site observations.

  000 the fifth-grade teacher at P.S. 30 whose class I used to visit: Jasmine Harrinarine Gonzalez is the new principal of P.S. 65.

  000 P.S. 30 is rated very high for the progress it has made in the past three years: The school has been rated A (the highest rating) on its Progress Reports by the New York City Department of Education for the 2008–9, 2009–10, and 2010–11 school years. P.S. 65 received B, C, and B for the same years.

 
000 statistics for other elementary schools serving the same neighborhood or neighborhoods nearby: New York Times, September 2, 2011.

  000 middle schools in South Bronx: New York City Department of Education Progress Reports, 2009–10, for M.S. 203, J.H.S. 162, M.S. 343, and P.S./I.S. 244.

  000 72 percent noncompletion rate for black males in New York City: “The 2010 Fifty State Report on Public Education and Black Males,” released by the Schott Foundation for Public Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts and New York City. Michael Holzman, chief researcher for the Schott Foundation study, notes that New York City students who cannot qualify for graduation by the standards of the state, which are established by the New York Board of Regents, may, as an alternative, be given “local” diplomas, which are, he says, “in effect, certificates of attendance.” Some of the unsuccessful black male students included in the figures given in the Schott Foundation study, Holzman observes, have graduated in this limited respect “but not in the sense of having been prepared (or even qualified) for college” and, he adds, “not qualified, or prepared, for much of anything.” (Memo to me from Michael Holzman, November 23, 2011.) The question of what kind of document a student receives at the end of senior year is somewhat academic in the case at hand, since the vast majority of black male students in the New York City schools drop out of school before they enter the twelfth grade—typically, in my experience, at least a year or two years earlier.

  000 at both elementary schools serving St. Ann’s neighborhood, zero percent of students were Caucasian: New York State School Report Card, 2009–10, for P.S. 65 and P.S. 30.

  About the Author

  JONATHAN KOZOL is the National Book Award–winning author of Savage Inequalities, Death at an Early Age, The Shame of the Nation, and Amazing Grace. He has been working with children in inner-city schools for nearly fifty years.