Michael Bennet Quotes

Teacher compensation isn't the only factor in cultivating great teaching. Other important priorities include changing how we measure student performance, providing more flexibility to teacher-preparation programs, and improving how we train and support principals.

Few things are more important to our country's future than recruiting and keeping great teachers in our schools.

There are teachers' unions around the country realizing they want to improve standards of the profession, improve the quality of their profession, and ultimately attract the best and the brightest to their profession. The vast majority of teachers are dedicated and committed.

To get enough of the teachers we need, teaching has to be a great job where talented people are supported and rewarded.

I've heard a number of our alumni - people who are running schools and school systems - think a lot about different models for the teaching profession.

Fixing our schools must begin with reforming the way we attract talent to teaching.

We need to reward the 'thankless job' of substitute teaching with better pay and chances for permanent positions. I look forward to the day when no student comes home saying, 'I didn't learn much today... we had a sub.'

It's critical that states improve how teachers are trained, recruited, evaluated, compensated, advanced, and retained.

We can pay teachers a hundred thousand dollars a year, and we'll do nothing to improve our schools as long as we keep the A, B, C, D, F grading system.

Barack Obama wants teacher service scholarships.

We have seen that, in another unfunded mandate, the so-called No Child Left Behind Act, which created tougher standards, and we all support that, but Congress did not provide the money to attract and hire the best teachers.

President Obama and Secretary Duncan have made stronger teacher evaluation a key part of their education reform efforts. Under their signature plan, called 'Race to the Top,' states can win federal support for schools by improving teacher evaluations.

If we want to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, it starts with a fair wage, adequate working conditions, and the resources and support to succeed. Remember: teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions.

While I agree completely that attracting good teachers is difficult, and we need to spend more time doing that - in part by paying them more money - I don't think there's any evidence for the idea that somehow tenure attracts good teachers. In fact, I think the evidence is to the contrary.

Ensuring all kids have access to an effective, talented teacher needs to be a national priority.

I want to attract the best people into teaching.

There is no education system in the world - none at all - that's better than its average teacher.

The biggest barrier we've seen to student progress is this: School policies and practices often prevent good teachers from doing great work and even dissuade some talented Americans from entering the profession. This needs to change.

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

More than half of my former students teach - elementary and high school, community college and university. I taught them to be passionate about literature and writing, and to attempt to translate that passion to their own students. They are rookie teachers, most likely to be laid off and not rehired, even though they are passionate.

… while they're adding teachers in places like South Korea, we're laying them off in droves. It's unfair to our kids. It undermines their future and ours. And it has to stop. Pass this bill, and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong.

We've done a terrible job of hiring, supporting, and retaining the people tasked with the difficult responsibility of teaching our children.

We have to fix the education system.

We should have better schools.

Education reforms must be the priority for governments.