Cindy McCain Quotes

I believe there ought to be school choice, so that parents can choose within the public school system.

Many of those who argue for vouchers say that they simply want to use competition to improve public education. I don't think it works that way, and I've been watching this for a longtime.

I envision presenting parents with a marketplace of school choices - public, private, parochial, charter, virtual, blended, and home education. They then can choose the model that best equips their children for success.

Keep the Federal skunk out of our schools.

We stand for getting government out of the way, letting people make good decisions for themselves, in education, returning power to school boards and to teachers and to parents so they can educate the children.

The role of the federal government, if any, is to create more school choice.

I mentioned charter schools, and experimenting with our school system, to make it work. I think that's something we really have to pay attention to.

The single most prevalent form of child abuse in this country is the act of sending a child to a government school. We worry incessantly about the separation of church and state. We would do well to devote half as much attention to the separation of government and education.

And there should not be a limit on the creation of new public schools. We ought to expand choices for parents.

I'll continue to fight for school choice and home schooling. Do I believe in accountability? You bet I do.

All I suggest is to make K-12 like higher education. Higher education in the United States is the best in the world because these institutions compete with each other for your tuition dollar. Let's just bring competition to public education.

Yes, I believe in school choice. Parents know far better than government bureaucrats what their children need from an education standpoint, and they should be permitted to make that choice.

If you're going to have a public subsidy to education, vouchers are clearly a better way of delivering it. They should result in some loosening up and privatization of the government school system.

We want parents to have choices. But we never want to let the choice that one parent makes limit the choices that another parent can make.

As conservatives, we cannot just concede education over to the Democrats. We really need to be actively involved. And that's why I've been such a proponent of school choice and the other options that are out there, because the Left is clearly out there driving the agenda, trying to shape the minds of the next generation.

Schools should be open. If it's a public education, and the school in your district is poor-performing, you should be able to put your student or kid wherever you want.

The bottom line is we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children's schooling and education decisions.

Not every child learns for the same purpose, not every child thrives in the same settings and schools. Limiting a child to just one opportunity does nothing more than limit that child's future. The way forward must involve more public charter schools, which offer parents a tuition-free alternative to their neighborhood school.

I think charter schools, choice, and frankly school standards need a champion.

If we trust parents to choose child care for their children, and we trust them to help their children choose a college to attend – and both those systems have been so successful – why do we not also trust them to choose the best elementary or high school for their children?

The White House, in advancing the agenda for a [school] "choice" plan, rests its faith on market mechanisms. What reason have the black and very poor to lend their credence to a market system that has proved so obdurate and so resistant to their pleas at every turn?

I think the prospect of bringing back grammar schools has always been wrong and I've never supported it. And I don't think any Conservative government would have done it.

The charter school is a possibility, an alternative in certain circumstances, but not in most, and not in most places, and not - most parents don't have either the time, the inclination or the aptitude to sit and go through sifting what school and what is available and what the options are.

I've consistently said, we need to support charter schools. I think it is important to experiment, by looking at how we can reward excellence in the classroom.

In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats.