Cornel West Quotes

I would like to make it so that education was a right, and not a privilege.

Education for all seems to be the product of a type of distributive justice that is in no way related to the individual.

… free labor insists on universal education

Education should be a right, not a privilege. We need a revolution in the way that the United States funds higher education.

I believe public education is the new civil rights battle and I support charter schools.

I want poverty to end in tomorrow's Pakistan. I want every girl in Pakistan to go to school.

The government's objective, broadly expressed, is that all persons, whatever their level of ability, whether they live in town or country, have a right as citizens to a free education of the kind for which they are best fitted and to the fullest extent of their powers.

If we do not provide education for every single American, we are consigning those without an education to second-class status.

If you read the Freedom Charter carefully, you will find that - the clause that refers to education, and it says education must be free 'on merit.'

I don't think a good education should be confined to a privileged few.

I strongly believe that education is a human right and that it's extremely valuable, no matter where you live in the world.

Education is not a luxury, it is a basic human right.

Education is a right, it's a journey, it's a process, and it's something we have to stand for, as hard as it is.

Education is the civil rights issue of our generation.

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?

Until we reach equality in education, we can't reach equality in the larger society.

Politicians refuse to modernize schools, they cut out midnight basketball, but build all these new jails. First class jails, second class schools. This is zero tolerance.

In education, once more, the chief things are equality and freedom.

An education reformer is as important in America as the first lady.

[Betsy DeVos] is quite a smart person, capable, pretty sophisticated in subtle thought. And so to me, that puts her in the realm of policy. But we're in a climate where, as today, she tries to visit a school, and she can't even do that because protesters are blocking that.

My gut reaction [on Betsy DeVos] was, oh, my God. We are now back into the education wars.

And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'

In DC, policymakers think that if we can only have high enough standards, tough enough tests, and hold people accountable, we can close the achievement gap. And it hasn't happened. Yet the new law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, is based on the same test-based and market-driven framework and ideology, except it lets the states do it.

Betsy DeVos is not the most informed person on education policy, but I have seen her present a few times, and she presents as a pretty respectable, intelligent person who has cared passionately about education and cares about charter schools.

I think that equality needs to be broadened to include equal access to comprehensive healthcare, equal access to jobs, and equal rights in the workplace.