Ted Kulongoski Quotes

I'm not just a politician, I'm a guy who has a real deep, substantive, commitment to education.

In Barack Obama, we have a great education president who is rebuilding America. His Race to the Top program is doing more to 'spur us' to improve our public schools than anything we've ever done as a nation.

The greatest obstacle to those who hope to reform American education is complacency.

During my time as a state legislator, I've pushed for significant investment in public school districts. In Congress, I would look forward to increasing federal public investment in education through initiatives like Race to the Top.

If the world's leaders are serious about improving collective well-being, we'd better get serious about prioritizing education in our nations and in our global discussion.

Although children are only 24 percent of the population, they're 100 percent of our future and we cannot afford to provide any child with a substandard education.

May this plain statement of facts prevail on the friends of the rising generation to interpose for their welfare; that the education of children may no longer be to parent and master a lottery, in which the prizes bear no proportion to the enormous number of blanks.

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.

But then it hasn't really been a focus of our government to make us an educated people.

The education of a nation instead of being confined to a few schools and universities for the instruction of the few, must become the national care and expense for the formation of the many.

The government's most creative and significant duty is education.

Of all our institutions public education is the most important. Everything depends on it, the present and the future.

Organizations are accumulations of historical debris. They are not consciously thought. So when you ask the Education Ministry 'What's your core function and who's your client?' they laugh at you. When I say that the client is the Afghan child - and the Ministry is an instrument, not the goal - it's greeted with shock. It's a new idea.

When we set up our kids for failure, we set up our workforce for failure, and we set up our economy for failure. I can't emphasize enough the importance, the absolute importance, of education in achieving long-term economic growth.

We cannot, as a country, improve economically, socially, and culturally without quality education.

We need to focus on helping EVERY child to get a world-class education in EVERY school in this country.

A core part of Teach For America's mission has always been affecting positive change in the traditional public school system.

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

I believe we need a national amendment which will guarantee every child in America the promise of not just an equal education but a high-quality equal education.

This is not a skill problem, this is a will problem. Does America have the will to make education a priority? We know the things that work. Why don't we scale up those things that do work.

You cannot simply put more money into the same system and get better results, so we will need to reform and innovate in the delivery of education.

We have done a poor job educating people about education. Only when we have clarified that can we talk about how best to achieve it.

I believe the government should ensure all children are provided with a good education.

There is nothing more important to our Nation's future, to our homeland security, and to our economy than ensuring we have a top-notch educational system that is the envy of the world.

The Time to Succeed Coalition brings together an unprecedented group of leaders from education and business, communities and academia to say that it is time to strike the shackles of an outdated school calendar from our disadvantaged schools.