Wendy Kopp Quotes

We have seen that, in another unfunded mandate, the so-called No Child Left Behind Act, which created tougher standards, and we all support that, but Congress did not provide the money to attract and hire the best teachers.

President Obama and Secretary Duncan have made stronger teacher evaluation a key part of their education reform efforts. Under their signature plan, called 'Race to the Top,' states can win federal support for schools by improving teacher evaluations.

We can not wait until we have enough trained people willing to work at a teacher's salary and under conditions imposed upon teachers in order to improve what happens in the classroom.

There is no education system in the world - none at all - that's better than its average teacher.

If teaching isn't rewarding and challenging, we're going to continue to lose our best teachers to work in other fields.

To get enough of the teachers we need, teaching has to be a great job where talented people are supported and rewarded.

It is vital that teachers can be paid more without having to leave the classroom. This will be particularly important to schools in the most disadvantaged areas as it will empower them to attract and recruit the best teachers.

To encourage more top-caliber students to choose teaching, teachers should be paid a lot more, with starting salaries more in the range of $60,000 and potential earnings of as much as $150,000.

I am deeply concerned with the diminution of the teaching strength of the country as a result of the disproportionately low salaries that are paid to teachers throughout the country.

Teaching is the profession that makes all other professions possible and yet we do not treat teachers as professionals.

We don’t get the quality of people going into teaching that other nations do…. When people go teacher bashing, they are making the problem worse.

There are teachers' unions around the country realizing they want to improve standards of the profession, improve the quality of their profession, and ultimately attract the best and the brightest to their profession. The vast majority of teachers are dedicated and committed.

While I agree completely that attracting good teachers is difficult, and we need to spend more time doing that - in part by paying them more money - I don't think there's any evidence for the idea that somehow tenure attracts good teachers. In fact, I think the evidence is to the contrary.

When people think the issue can be solved, it becomes a moral imperative to be part of the solution. We can do a lot more within our school districts to recruit aggressively, select people according to high standards, invest in their training and development, and foster and reward their leadership. Once we invest more in attracting, developing and retaining teachers, potential recruits will begin to see it as a profession worth considering.

There is no accountability in the public school system - except for coaches. You know what happens to a losing coach. You fire him. A losing teacher can go on losing for 30 years and then go to glory.

In education, I'm going to try to find what works. One thing I want to do is improve the quality of teachers. There are a lot of people who want to go into teaching; it's fundamentally a very fulfilling profession. But people don't feel they have financial support. We pay starting teachers in particular too little to attract the quality people that we need. I want to make it easier for good people who want to go into teaching to do that.

Good education is linked with good teachers. We need to think how we can have good teachers. India has the capability to produce & export as many teachers to the World as it needs. We need to think about how we can create an environment where children want to become good teachers.

School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers.

The impending teacher shortage is the most critical education issue we will face in the next decade.

Teacher compensation isn't the only factor in cultivating great teaching. Other important priorities include changing how we measure student performance, providing more flexibility to teacher-preparation programs, and improving how we train and support principals.

Given the professionalism of Michigan teachers, I think they're not teaching because of the financial rewards.

It's critical that states improve how teachers are trained, recruited, evaluated, compensated, advanced, and retained.

We should be firing bad teachers.

Barack Obama wants teacher service scholarships.

Realistically, I think we are not prepared to go home until we do get more teachers and lower class sizes.