Gaston Caperton Quotes

I support high academic standards. Period.

Call me old-fashioned, but it's always been my firm belief that a teacher's job should be for each of his or her students to finish the year with a grade of 100%.

I have seen schools across the country working long and hard to embed a commitment to the unlimited development of every student into their cultures. The result, in terms of motivated learners and test scores, often is spectacular.

Lower standards tell students that they don't need to work hard and leave more high school students unprepared for college and the workplace.

Duke is in extremely competitive environment. In my high school, I think I got one B my whole four years. I was used to being the smartest kid in every class I was in, and then I went to Duke and suddenly I was the dumbest kid in every class. Everybody there is up to something.

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.

I've said all along it's a humbling experience being at UCLA. Extremely proud, extremely blessed to be at an institution with all this tradition.

I could have been a Rhodes Scholar, except for my grades.

Hunter High School was a real turning point for me. I found out about its existence through the music school. Nobody I knew had gone to one of these special high schools, and my teachers didn't think it was possible to get in. But Hunter sent me a practice exam, and I studied what I needed to know to pass the exam.

Early college high schools in North Carolina and across the country show us that challenge - not remediation - is an approach to education that works.

I have never gotten a B in my life. I would honestly be mortified if I got a B. I'm so academically driven.

I'm an ambitious person, and Harvard makes me feel successful, just having gotten in here. That's the ugly side of why I'm proud of being at Harvard Law School. Another reason is because there's a spirit of serious intellectual endeavor here.

It wasn't just OK to achieve in my family - it was expected.

Reed College required a thesis for a Bachelor's degree. Normally a Bachelor's is sort of like being stamped 'Prime US Beef.' They just walk you through, hand out the diplomas and you fill in your name later on.

Harvard takes perfectly good plums as students, and turns them into prunes.

I don’t know any parent who wants to send his children to a below average school.

Schools should be held accountable for results.

I stood as well as any in my class, but the test of scholarship at that day was contemptible

We need a serious intellectual culture in schools.

If I came home with a grade of A, my father would say, 'There must have been a lot of dummies in that class.'

It was becoming clear that, from being at the top at Holy Cross, we were at the bottom at St. Peter's. Objectively, this was very good, for it offered us a challenge and an opportunity to grow if we were ready to take it; and we surely were.

My parents were typical Asian parents, and they do, like all parents, want their children to be successful. They really encouraged my brother and I to study math and science, and that's what we did as kids.

Both my parents are teachers, and while they were always cool with what I did, they never let me take my education lightly.

I was valedictorian of my class until I switched to a neighboring high school, but I maintained the grades and involvement. Switching schools was tough.

Our schools should be rewarding for all students.