Barack Obama Quotes

Training the workforce of tomorrow with today's high schools is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe.

Education in general, and higher education in particular, is on the brink of a huge disruption. Two big questions, which were once so well-settled that we ceased asking them, are now up for grabs. What should young people be learning? And what sorts of credentials indicate they're ready for the workforce?

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

Our current expectations for what our students should learn in school were set fifty years ago to meet the needs of an economy based on manufacturing and agriculture. We now have an economy based on knowledge and technology.

If we are to transition to a new economy and to lead it, we must start by transforming our schools.

The question is, will we continue to fight what may be a rearguard action to defend universal literacy as a central goal of our education system, or are we bold enough to see what's actually happening to our culture?

I think part of the problem is the education system doesn't work - it's not accountable.

If American schooling is inadequate now, just imagine how much more obsolete it will be when today's kindergarten students graduate from high school in just 12 years.

Our education system was developed for an industrial era where we could teach certain skills to our children and they were able to use these skills for the rest of their lives working productively in an industry.

The employment laws are completely unrealistic. You cannot overcome that in only 10 years. It will take at least another generation before young people are properly qualified.

I started Knewton to do my bit to fix the world's education system.

We have to build a better education in this country. We need to step it up.

It's time to declare a cease-fire in the education arms race. We have far more to gain from collaborating to solve our common problems than competing for higher rankings.

Inner city education must change. Our responsibility is not merely to provide access to knowledge; we must produce educated people.

Our education system is not meeting the needs of today’s workforce much less tomorrow’s.

You know there's a problem [with the education system] when you realize that out of the three R’s, only one begins with an R.

That's why I created the New America School - to fill the cracks in our public education system.

When you have teachers saying, 'I don't have enough time for hands-on activities,' we need to rethink the way we do education.

I've worked in public education for 30 years - as a teacher, a lawyer and union leader. I've visited hundreds of schools and districts. I've seen leaders from the classroom to the national stage who have been willing to set aside their differences and do the hard work that's necessary to create real, enduring change.

We have to fix the education system.

The world has changed, but education has not changed with it.

I feel strongly that we have to have an education system that starts with preschool and goes through college. That's why I want more technical education in high schools and in community colleges, real apprenticeships to prepare young people for the jobs of the future.

All too often, schools resemble museums, reflecting the past rather than shaping the future

I am inclined to think that one's education has been in vain if one fails to learn that most schoolmasters are idiots.

Today's Schools are not Tomorrows Schools. That's a fundamental misconception.