Mark Shields Quotes

President-elect [Donald] Trump has made a provocative choice for secretary of education. Betsy DeVos comes from a wealthy Michigan family. She is an advocate for school choice. That phrase means, in essence, directing public education money to charter schools, private schools or parochial schools.

On the [Betsy] DeVos case, I agree that the gun - her gun position is kind of weird, kind of crazy, but I do think she does know about public schools.

Charter schools are not a panacea.

90 percent of American schoolchildren are in public schools. And the emphasis on private schools and charter schools and parochial schools is not unimportant.

[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.

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.

When you say you don't think we should have public schools, they can't believe you mean that. You must mean that they should be smaller. But you can't really mean no public schools.

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

The problems of public schools will not be solved by cutting off the source of their funding, which is what vouchers are.

Get rid of Betsy DeVos.

Public education is so important - resisting privatization and charterization, high-stakes testing, and defunding. It's important for New York, but it's also important for the country.

American education will be determined by the quality of American public education, and that's public schools that are available.

I just cannot understand why we can't have better schools. That private schools are the only option for the kind of high-net-worth crowd, I think, is ridiculous. It should be a major initiative. It should be something we're all working on. We have to get our head out of the clouds.

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

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

[Betsy DeVos] does care about charter schools, which are public schools. She does care about choice, which is a perfectly legitimate thing to care about. It's because it's the one issue where the Democratic donor base was really energized, which was the teacher unions.

Public school system status quo is indefensible.

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

I'm a very big public school advocate.

As more government functions are privatized, we find political leaders defunding the public school system, shifting government funds to the private, for-profit school industry.

The difference between the denominational system and the public school system is all the difference between bolstering them up on the one hand and letting them alone of the other.

Grammar schools are public schools without the sodomy.

When you introduce competition into the public school system, most studies show that schools start to do better when they are competing for students.

In my mind, there is no reason public school reform should be a partisan issue.

The key for all cities is whether you turn the public schools around.