David Blunkett Quotes

We at the Department of Education are going to provide technical assistance; I've committed $14 million to show states how they might meet this more sophisticated approach.

Real improvement in our schools is not simply a matter of spending more, it is a matter of expecting more.

And I think that's righteous, I think that's what parents want to know. They want to know what's going right in the school, and what needs improvement, and that's what this law does.

I do not think that the educational program of our schools should be determined by what the community thinks it needs.

Earlier today, Arnold Schwarzenegger criticized the California school system, calling it disastrous. Arnold says California's schools are so bad that its graduates are willing to vote for me.

We need to drive down requirements for the schools. In the 19th century, we increased the quality of the schools by higher education saying, 'You can't come in unless you have these skills, unless you've taken these courses.' We did that in Wisconsin when I was there, it helped to transform the secondary school system.

I am very proud of the quality of public education in Nebraska, but I believe we have an obligation to continually assess whether our system is meeting 21st Century education needs.

Scholarships that allow students to get a good education are important, but first we want to measure the progress that the schools are teaching our students, we want to hold them accountable for the progress, we want to hold the schools accountable for teaching the young people in America.

Frankly, I'm not sure how far I would get if I attended public school today. It's not just that public schools aren't producing the results we want - it's that we're not giving them what they need to help students achieve at high levels. K-12 education in the United States is deeply antiquated.

For six and a half years, I had responsibility for leading the Labour party policy on education and delivering on our promise of improved opportunities for all our children.

I have said it on several occasions, several times from this podium, that providing a quality education for our children is high on my priority list. I will not stop now.

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.

With the enactment of the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, we have taken an important step toward achieving federal education policies that will allow students to learn and achieve at the highest possible level.

In the education debate, people are so passionate about their ideas that we often end up expending more energy shouting at each other than we do pushing for the fundamentals to success in all schools.

They [educators] don't want to hear my views on education. They just want the [federal] money.

Competition has not worked in education because it has never really been tried.

I think that there should be national standards in reading and math and maybe history and civics….We have a culture of non-compliance with Federal requirements in education.

Improving our nation's education system has long been the cornerstone of my policy agenda.

As we embark on something as ambitious as the Common Core, educators must be able to teach to the standards with the necessary support and collaboration and without the sense that there will be dire consequences if students, schools and their tests don't make the grade.

Common Core is a big win for education.

We need quantitative assessments of the success of education. We need certification and qualifications both for teachers and for pupils. It is not a choice between quantity and quality, between access and excellence. Both of these will happen together if people really do believe in the importance of education to change lives.

Local school districts should be free to adapt their academic programs in ways appropriate for their community, but we cannot allow mindless budget shortfalls to force wrongheaded changes to our children's education.

Competitive programs such as Race to the Top provide incentives for communities to develop new solutions for old problems. Because of Race to the Top, states have raised their standards and committed to fixing schools that have persistently failed students.

Countries like Japan do not have to change their cultures to address their educational shortcomings; they simply have to adjust their policies and practices.

Our nation's commitment is to provide a quality education to every child to serve the public common good. Accordingly, we must shift the paradigm to think of education funding as investments made in individual children, not in institutions or buildings.