Margaret Spellings Quotes

Real improvement in our schools is not simply a matter of spending more, it is a matter of expecting more.

We need to drive down requirements for the schools. In the 19th century, we increased the quality of the schools by higher education saying, 'You can't come in unless you have these skills, unless you've taken these courses.' We did that in Wisconsin when I was there, it helped to transform the secondary school system.

Scholarships that allow students to get a good education are important, but first we want to measure the progress that the schools are teaching our students, we want to hold them accountable for the progress, we want to hold the schools accountable for teaching the young people in America.

No Child Left Behind taught us that parents, teachers and state and local leaders are more suited to address students' needs than a one-size-fits-all accountability system developed by Washington bureaucrats.

I'm clear that we do need to improve what's happening in our schools.

Schools should be held accountable for results.

School grades can help determine how well a principal or school leader is doing, and yeah, you need to have some way to evaluate schools.

Standardized tests are an indicator of the kind of service taxpayers are receiving - and whether schools, educators and policymakers are doing their jobs. In the United States, taxpayers spend almost $600 billion annually on public education, so it's not unreasonable to ask what all that money is producing. In fact, it's irresponsible not to know.

If you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer.

Texas is a national leader in education reform and student achievement. Through our college- and career-ready standards and assessments, strong school accountability, and a focus on educator development, we have created an education system that prepares our students for success after graduation.

The U.S. has a long history of walking up to the precipice of rigor and then walking away. As voters, let's support leaders who were courageous enough to make the hard decisions necessary to move our system forward. And as parents, let's put our faith in our educators, our children and tests that hold them to their highest potential.

The No Child Left Behind Program was an incentive to the schools to get their kids up to snuff on math and science and reading.

The No Child Left Behind Act will be one of President Bush's enduring legacies. And it was engineered and inaugurated with a truly bipartisan coalition in Congress. Accountability, standards, and truly measuring student performance just makes sense. The only real debate about the law was and is whether or not it was adequately funded.

Earlier today, Arnold Schwarzenegger criticized the California school system, calling it disastrous. Arnold says California's schools are so bad that its graduates are willing to vote for me.

Many more schools can be outstanding.

Frankly, I'm not sure how far I would get if I attended public school today. It's not just that public schools aren't producing the results we want - it's that we're not giving them what they need to help students achieve at high levels. K-12 education in the United States is deeply antiquated.

I think part of the problem is the education system doesn't work - it's not accountable.

In primary schools, I set two main objectives - to cut infant class sizes and improve literacy and numeracy.

We at the Department of Education are going to provide technical assistance; I've committed $14 million to show states how they might meet this more sophisticated approach.

In the education debate, people are so passionate about their ideas that we often end up expending more energy shouting at each other than we do pushing for the fundamentals to success in all schools.

Parents have a right to know whether their children are mastering the basics.

For many years we have spent a great deal of effort and money on school reform. Yet where are we today?

We are spending a lot of money on our schools. We’ve got to make ourselves accountable for the results.

The only way communities will have great schools is if the people demand it.

The simple facts are these: We need higher standards in our schools, and we need to hold teachers accountable for the outcomes in their classrooms.