Sargent Shriver Quotes

Comprehensive schools, as too few understand, have never been designed to improve education.

American education has been littered with failed fads and foolish ideas for the past century.

We have done a poor job educating people about education. Only when we have clarified that can we talk about how best to achieve it.

For 'Power of 10,' you can look at the methodology at CBS.com, it's a company called Rasmussen Reports. We poll thousands and thousands of people for each question, a real cross section of the United States.

What makes me angry? The education of children. How in God's name can you expect to have a functioning society the way we teach our kids?

That the state of knowledge in any country will exert a directive influence on the general system of instruction adopted in it, is a principle too obvious to require investigation.

Of all our institutions public education is the most important. Everything depends on it, the present and the future.

Organizations are accumulations of historical debris. They are not consciously thought. So when you ask the Education Ministry 'What's your core function and who's your client?' they laugh at you. When I say that the client is the Afghan child - and the Ministry is an instrument, not the goal - it's greeted with shock. It's a new idea.

The country that consistently ranks among the highest in educational achievement is Finland. A rich country, but education is free. Germany, education is free. France, education is free.

Our polling methodology has gotten outdated, and, in fact, it's not really telling us what it needs to be telling us.

I've worked in public education for 30 years - as a teacher, a lawyer and union leader. I've visited hundreds of schools and districts. I've seen leaders from the classroom to the national stage who have been willing to set aside their differences and do the hard work that's necessary to create real, enduring change.

We cannot, as a country, improve economically, socially, and culturally without quality education.

I think polling methodology is broken.

I'm a pollster by trade, so I'm into things that are actually quantifiable.

A system of education is not one thing, nor does it have a single definite object, nor is it a mere matter of schools. Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.

If, as the popular saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, the people who run our public schools fit that description.

I actually support President Obama's initiatives on early childhood. He has appointed me as a commissioner to consult his administration on educational excellence for Hispanics in the U.S. We try to find ways to improve the education system for Hispanics in America, to achieve excellence.

Beginning with the No Child Left Behind law and continuing today with Race to the Top, the federal emphasis on standardized assessments has become so excessive that it has modified state and district behavior in troubling ways.

Private sector cannot substitute the role of the government in primary education.

We need quantitative assessments of the success of education. We need certification and qualifications both for teachers and for pupils. It is not a choice between quantity and quality, between access and excellence. Both of these will happen together if people really do believe in the importance of education to change lives.

Education is popular but very low standard. No wonder the Philippine economy is bankrupt.

Polling is an art as well as a science, and the art of crafting good questions is still vital.

What we need is an education system that works for every child, not a select few. This starts with providing a quality education for our youngest Americans so they can learn, grow, and become prosperous citizens.

I don't believe in traditional, head-to-head polling.

We talk nonstop about what needs to be changed, and everyone has excuses for why the changes can't happen. I believe we must change our educational system first to get the changes moving forward. I'm happy to be a voice and get in front of an audience who can help by making education a priority.