Jonathan Kozol Quotes

I feel like in America, we don't have a kid problem. You think about all these issues that these kids are dealing with, we have an adult problem. We have adults that do not place the priority on our kids to get a valuable education.

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

I am going to use every rostrum and every forum and every searchlight that I can to tell the people of the country and their elected representatives that we can no longer afford overcrowded classrooms and half-day sessions. We just must not, we just cannot afford the great waste that comes from the neglect of a single child.

That there be equal educational opportunities for all and in all the States, and that public school expenditure be the same for Negro and white child.

This question of free text books in public schools seems to me one that should be given more consideration than has been done in the past. New York City provides them, individual towns and villages do the same, but the vast number of rural schools, particularly in poorer districts, put the burden on the parents to buy the books the children need.

Those inner-cities, they're not giving kids a chance. They're not giving the teachers a chance to really help those kids. They're making it real tough. You're either gonna help or you're hurting your own country.

For too long, we financed our schools in a way that has systematically left large segments of our population behind.

The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail.

The promise of education reform can never be fulfilled without adequate funding, and by shortchanging our schools, President Bush is breaking his promise to our children.

Everybody should be interested in access to primary and secondary education for everybody.

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.

The opponents of my budget propose taking $200 million out of our classrooms and instead spending it on a larger school employee pay raise. Our focus should be on making sure our children come first.

We can't afford not to fully fund education.

Education should be one of our top funding priorities; talking about it does not help the teachers and students who desperately need promises fulfilled.

Real Texans want their kids to have the best education possible, not the one politicians looking to brag about budget cuts have left us with.

I don't think the schools are getting as much money as they should.

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

It's not easy for the average family to ensure that their child receives a quality education. And the federal government is not making it any easier.

In my opinion, the Republican Party is the last on the list to care about the needs of old people and children and poor people.

When I first came to Los Angeles, I was a teacher in Compton. I know how in need schools are around the country.

The balance of our population, our human stock is threatened. A recent article in Poverty, published by the Child Poverty Action Group, showed that a high and rising proportion of children are being born to mothers least fitted to bring children into the world and to bring them up.

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.

We build more prisons than we do classrooms; the quality of the prisons is better than the quality of the classrooms.

Just because a child's parents are poor or uneducated is no reason to deprive the child of basic human rights to health care, education, proper nutrition.