Margaret Spellings Quotes

Parents have a right to know whether their children are mastering the basics.

I think some parents now look at a youngster failing as the final thing. It's a process, and failure is part of the process. I would like it if the teacher and the parents would connect more. I think that used to be, but we're losing a little bit of that right now.

An education program is, by definition, a societal program. Work should be done at school, rather than at home.

Teachers themselves know if there's a colleague who can't keep control or keep the interest of their class, it affects the whole school.

Most teachers prefer to teach highly motivated kids who live in safe communities.

As an urban school superintendent, I learned that hiring, training, and investing in professionals to support our children's social and emotional development, meeting academic expectations for students with special needs, and finding more minutes of instruction in the week, not fewer, mattered.

Some parents do not send their children to school because they don't know its importance at all.

Children learn and remember at least as much from the context of the classroom as from the content of the coursework.

The motives of these parents vary, many parents don't like the curriculum being taught to their kids, or are wary of the threat of peer pressure or the presence of drugs or violence lurking in too many of our schools today.

I think private school is much better at customer service and making the parents feel better, especially in Los Angeles. It's almost like a spa for the parents where you drop your kids off, where they give you a beautifully baked thing and let the parents write their own newsletter about global warming.

By far the most important factor in the success or failure of any school, far more important than tests or standards or business-model methods of accountability, is simply attracting the best-educated, most exciting young people into urban schools and keeping them there.

Every single kid in my group of friends at school was from a single-parent family.

I want my kids to be in an environment where they can talk about values in a way that you can't always do in a public school setting.

Good teachers must inspire children to work hard - make projects and give them good marks even if genuine projects look crude and unprofessional.

One of the problems we have is children are not in school long enough in the day and during the year.

The single most important thing in a child's performance is the quality of the teacher. Making sure a child spends the maximum amount of time with inspirational teachers is the most important thing.

Particular individuals who might never consider dropping out if they were in a different high school might decide to drop out if they attended a school where many boys and girls did so.

What passes for a curriculum in today's schools is little else than a strategy of distraction... It is largely defined to keep students from knowing themselves and their environment in any realistic sense; which is to say, it does not allow inquiry into most of the critical problems that comprise the content of the world outside the school.

Parents have become so convinced educators know what is best for children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts.

If you want to reform schools, don't do it with testing. We used to say, "If you want elephants to grow, you don't weigh the elephants. You feed the elephants." Children will not grow unless they get quality instruction.

Parents have got to become more involved in their children’s education.

K to 12 is partly about babysitting the kids so the parents can do other things.

It's hard work to ensure that all schools are safe and welcoming places for all children. It means changing policies, practices and cultures; providing school support personnel; and funding programs like restorative justice - not simply resorting to excessive and often discriminatory discipline.

There has been a great challenge in improving educational achievement. It's a long-term issue, not a short-term one. It includes everything from getting more parents involved to addressing issues of poverty and improving what happens in the classroom.

The research clearly demonstrates high-quality early childhood opportunities help children succeed.