Derek Bok Quotes

Ensuring quality higher education is one of the most important things we can do for future generations.

For every challenge we face - unemployment, poverty, crime, income growth, income inequality, productivity, competitiveness - a great education is a major component of the solution.

Clinton understands that in a competitive global economy we need the best-educated workforce in the world. She and I worked together on a proposal that will revolutionize higher education in America.

It is difficult to understand precisely what the state hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare and crime.

The one thing we can do is invest in the quality of education, especially higher education.

Also, if we take back our schools and concentrate on improving them so our children get a better education, they will be better trained to compete for a job locally.

On education, in order to ensure that America remains a world leader, we must create an educated, skilled workforce in the vital areas of science, math, engineering and information technology. At the same time, we must give every student access to a college degree.

With Michigan's economic future on the line, we can't afford to have our 500 local school districts marching in different directions. Instead, we need a high standards, mandatory curriculum to get all our students on the road to higher education and a good paying job.

Community colleges are popular among political leaders of both parties. But because of the lack of funding and a lack of direction, they have lost their critical edge in preparing workers for a 21st-century economy.

From the outset, the Obama administration has recognized that building a robust skills infrastructure means building strong partnerships with community colleges.

Governor Romney, how many fewer college degrees would it take to make America more competitive?

When the federal government invests in education, it should support quality education and career readiness rather than institutions that make empty promises.

I believe that the future is determined by the great public universities. They educate 80 percent of the students and make the American Dream available.

Who's going to be against making sure students have the education for a knowledge economy?

We owe every student in every neighborhood in New Jersey an equal opportunity to succeed. We know that more money, alone, is not the answer. We need to redefine success, and how we pursue that success, by the outcomes obtained by students.

How can you contribute towards building the Indian society and the Indian nation? No better way than to upgrade the quality of young people in school, particularly the schools which are run by the state government in the villages.

Now, we believe that the majority of teachers in America know our system must be reformed, to put students first so that America can compete, that teachers don't teach to become rich or famous. They teach because they love children.

I think higher ed in the U.S. is fairly healthy, and by global standards it dominates, and it makes people more productive. But a lot of our K-12 is a disaster. And the single most important reform would just be to fire the worst ten or 15 percent of teachers in the lot, and we would have massive improvements.

Through the Committee on Education and the Workforce, we need to ensure we are educating a future generation to achieve a workforce for the 21st century. I believe the best education solutions come from those closest to the students: state and local entities.

We are a country that lacks riches. The Jewish brain, that's what we have. Everything that we've had and will have in this country is the direct and clear product of higher education. If we harm this system, we will drastically decline and cease to exist.

All I suggest is to make K-12 like higher education. Higher education in the United States is the best in the world because these institutions compete with each other for your tuition dollar. Let's just bring competition to public education.

Let's focus on how we can take someone who is being poorly educated in an American public school and how they are poorly trained for a job, and put in place those opportunities for them to get that education, give their parents choice in education, make it real for them.

America needs education reform on all levels to expand quality schools, build on past successes, and lower college debt.

Over the long term, the only way we're going to raise wages, grow the economy, and improve American competitiveness is by investing in our people - especially their educations.

We must ensure our system of higher education offers world-class quality for a world-class economy.