Kenny Leon Quotes

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the rest of the Ivy League are worthy institutions, to be sure, but they're not known for educating large numbers of poor young people.

We can't accept that it's O.K. if only some kids get to go to college.

Parents with meager means have the same aspirations for their children as other parents. Children from poor families have the same needs as other children.

Economic inequality is not about food stamps and homeless shelters. It is about being a devotee of social justice and equality.

But when you talk about the education and you talk about the lack of recreation for kids to do, I mean, it's second to none in New Orleans when you talk about the lack of opportunities for young people. And it's not just black kids, it's white kids. It's Asian kids. I had Vietnamese kids in my class that had lack of opportunities.

Even Milton Friedman - doyen of radical free market thought - was willing to consider some government intervention into primary education on the grounds that it is unfair for children to not get a chance in life because they were born to poor parents.

Let me ask you: Should only children of the wealthy have access to quality early education? Should only children of the wealthy have access to a college degree? The answer - the only answer - is: no.

Poor people, people of color - especially are much more likely to be found in prison than in institutions of higher education.

In many of the high schools in the South Bronx, more children will end up in prison than will go to college.

The poor get bored the same as the rest of us. Their happiness might be as important to them as their health.

Income inequality is troubling because, among other things, it means that many people in our society don't have the opportunities to advance themselves.

The future of America is not an entitlement. We have been given a treasure chest of gifts and opportunities, but some people are being left behind, and success is not sustainable unless it is shared.

In the underdeveloped countries, we have young men and women, many of them of capacity but without opportunity to improve themselves. They cannot do so without help.

For students today, only 10 percent of children from working-class families graduate from college by the age of 24 as compared to 58 percent of upper-middle-class and wealthy families.

Like so many American families, our families weren't asking for much. They didn't begrudge anyone else's success or care that others had much more than they did... in fact, they admired it.

At Year Up, our students - low income 18-24 year olds - come to us having already faced substantial obstacles in life. They are not in search of a handout; what they want most of all is the ability to take ownership of their own futures.

I want to fight poverty and ignorance and give opportunity to those people who are locked out.

All around the world, we send our top talent into finance, technology, medicine and law - everywhere but towards expanding opportunity for our most marginalized children.

America's 'social contract' is equal opportunity... yet we have failed in achieving that seminal goal.

My feeling is, having lived in different classes, that people want equality of opportunity... that's the thing that makes me despair: the idea that people aren't given equality of opportunity.

If we don't empower families to be able to have a quality education, then their children - for the first time in American history, truly the first time - will not have the same economic opportunities.

So, the struggle for equal educational opportunity continues.

The Tories and the Lib Dems talk about social mobility, but, short of winning the lottery, the only way to guarantee young people from all backgrounds the opportunity to do better and to raise aspirations is through education.

Those born into poverty or on the margins of society require our extra support to realize their dreams.

In America we believe that every child, no matter where they live, who their family is, or what the color of their skin, is entitled to as good an education as the richest parent in America can give to their children.