Jeff Duncan Quotes

States are free to modify the Common Core State Standards or adopt their own individual standards, because academic standards are the prerogative of the states.

Parents and teachers alike are alarmed by this top-down approach to education that wrongly ties education money for states to the adoption of academic standards that do not fully reflect the values of South Carolina.

I don't want Washington - let me be perfectly clear - I do not want Washington involved in local education decisions any more than I want them involved in common core. You know, common core was a state-created and state-implemented voluntary set of standards in Math and English that are comparable across state lines.

I believe in local control of education.

At the federal level, we must help, not hinder, local school boards, parents, teachers and administrators as they make decisions about educating our children.

Keep the Federal skunk out of our schools.

The Washington-knows-best approach has repeatedly failed the very children it proposes to help. It's time to roll back Common Core and return education to the people who it matters most to - children, parents, and teachers.

We've heard people say that teachers have no business going rogue and trying to select their own books, technology, and classes - and citizens have no business deciding what is worthy. We believe in teachers. We believe in the wisdom of the crowd.

I don't believe the federal government should be involved in the creation of standards directly or indirectly, the creation of curriculum or content. It is clearly a state responsibility.

As a school board member, I might have particular views about the ways we might increase the economics curriculum in a local high school, but I'm not sure I should mandate that for the entire country.

I do not think that the educational program of our schools should be determined by what the community thinks it needs.

Mr. Obama seeks to federalize large portions of education, beginning with his attempt to nationalize college student loans.

The Federal Government does not have a huge role in education and most parents like it that way.

I think that there should be national standards in reading and math and maybe history and civics….We have a culture of non-compliance with Federal requirements in education.

Federal and State mandates don’t do anything for local schools other than to protect failure.

One thing I cannot understand - and people are probably going to be upset about this - is why local school boards have control over educational content.

I would abolish the federal Department of Education and very quickly. People don't realize that the federal Department of Education gives each state 11 cents out of every school dollar that every state spends. But it comes with 15 cents worth of strings attached.

I trust Colorado families and teachers way more than I trust D.C. central planners who think they know better than parents do.

When it comes to education, no solution, not even ones we like, should be dictated or run from Washington, D.C.

I do support high standards, strong accountability, and local control.

Bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., shouldn't know how to better educate my kids than I do.

You can't improve what you can't measure, and liberals have resisted any kind of meaningful measurement of success in the classroom for decades. Instead of focusing on the three R's, liberals have thrown up a barrage of silly things designed to distract us all from their awful stewardship of the schools.

As we continue to step up our investment in education, we must not sidestep our commitment to the principle of local control.

We do need curriculum reform. And it should happen at the state and local level. That is where educational policy belongs, because if a parent is unhappy with what their child is being taught in school, they can go to that local school board or their state legislature, or their governor and get it changed.

Here's the problem with Common Core. The Department of Education, like every federal agency, will never be satisfied. They will not stop with it being a suggestion. They will turn it into a mandate.In fact, what they will begin to say to local communities is, you will not get federal money unless do you things the way we want you to do it. And they will use Common Core or any other requirements that exists nationally to force it down the throats of our people in our states.