Matt Gonzalez Quotes

We need to increase education budgets.

We can't afford not to fully fund education.

The last thing that should happen is funding cut for education; it should be increased. We need to put more money towards education, and anything else is abusive.

I'm very committed to stable and adequate funding for education.

I'm a product of public schools. They are resource-challenged, and when you take those dollars away from public schools and send them to private schools, you're further starving the system.

I want to see us add more dollars to the classroom.

In education, they say either property taxes have to go up, or we'll have poor education - that's a false choice.

The amount of money we spend on education is important, but not nearly as important as how the money is spent.

If the government is going to mandate levels and punish schools for failing, they should send that money to the school system.

The promise of education reform can never be fulfilled without adequate funding, and by shortchanging our schools, President Bush is breaking his promise to our children.

As a matter of record, New York City spends a higher portion of its budget on instruction and associated costs within the schools themselves than any of the other 100 largest districts in the nation.

The opponents of my budget propose taking $200 million out of our classrooms and instead spending it on a larger school employee pay raise. Our focus should be on making sure our children come first.

Education should be one of our top funding priorities; talking about it does not help the teachers and students who desperately need promises fulfilled.

I am going to use every rostrum and every forum and every searchlight that I can to tell the people of the country and their elected representatives that we can no longer afford overcrowded classrooms and half-day sessions. We just must not, we just cannot afford the great waste that comes from the neglect of a single child.

Everyone runs on an education platform. We have Education Presidents and Education Governors and Education Dog Catchers, but the dollars never match the rhetoric.

You can’t reform education without spending some money.

Once the federal dust settles, whether there is little to spend or a lot, education must continue to be our top priority. We can afford nothing less.

You have to be careful about measuring the quality of education by the sheer number of dollars that you put into it.

We don't reinvest in the American people. We don't put enough money into American education.

Our schools should get five years to get back to where they were in 1963. If they're still bad maybe we should declare educational bankruptcy, give the people their money and let them educate themselves and start their own schools.

The inequalities are greater now than in '92. Some states have equalized per-pupil spending but they set the 'equal level' very low, so that wealthy districts simply raise extra money privately.

If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.

During my time as a state legislator, I've pushed for significant investment in public school districts. In Congress, I would look forward to increasing federal public investment in education through initiatives like Race to the Top.

Common sense tells us that we should focus our resources to benefit children, teachers and taxpayers by keeping dollars in the classroom.

You know, there are some areas of the state that are providing enormous help to their students; there are others where they're not doing what they can.