Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

Some men will be always able to pay more for their children's education than others; and that those children will, inevitably, win in the struggle of life.

Better educated than wealthy

By the 1980s divorce declined among the more educated portions of the populace, while rates among the less educated continued to rise… the more educated and more well-to-do were more likely to wed. Given the family role as an incubator of human capital, such trends have had important spillover effects on inequality.

If you doubt that we live in a winner-take-all economy and that education is the trump card, consider the vast amounts the affluent spend to teach their offspring.

The life prospects of an American are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in any of the other advanced industrial countries.

I was very much a product of the public-school system. There was only one other kid in my class who had parents not involved in the stock market or law.

I went to school and made good grades and went to college. So I was afforded an opportunity through my parents' hard work that most people don't have.

We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don't accept is the idea that some folks won't even get a chance.

I want my kids to graduate from high school. But that's not enough. I also want them to go to college. Why? Because rich people's kids go to college. And if that's good enough for them, it's good enough for my kids. Because you know what? College graduates don't tend to go to jail as frequently as nongraduates.

Mitt Romney subscribes to the cynical logic that says the American dream belongs to some of us but not all of us.

As a senior at Princeton, I felt like the whole world was open to me. In our country, that's not a given. We aspire to be a place of equal opportunity, and yet where you're born determines your prospects.

It isn't the rich people's fault that poor people are poor. Poor people who get an education and work hard in this country will stop being poor. That should be the goal for all poor people everywhere.

Yes, the United States is still the great meritocracy it's always been; but now, if you aren't brilliant or beautiful or both, there isn't much to do, because they can do it cheaper in Shanghai or Mumbai.

My parents were the first in our family to go to grammar school. My grandparents were in service.

Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? … Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn't get what we had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.

The Scholastic Aptitude Tests do not predict success any better than the socio economic status of the parents.

In this respect, higher education is now causing most of the growing inequality and strengthening class structure of the United States.

Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity, and expanding equality of opportunity only increases it—because some individuals and communities are simply better able than others to exploit the opportunities for development and advancement that capitalism affords.

The middle class is a group defined by more than just money: it also leans on credentials, education, aspirations, assets, and, of course, household income.

I wish that positions of power dependent on education were as open to abused children, poor children, working-class children as they are to the children of the rich and successful. I really wish that were true.

The idea that there is a meritocracy where anyone from any background really might have the social and economic mobility to rise to the top in Silicon Valley, those are antithetical to a lot of the principles that the Trump administration apparently stands for.

Like my father, I used to believe that hard work and mastery of a standardized exam was the fairest way for students like me to compete with those who had far more resources.

Inequality is partly a marker of success.

People's fates in life are decided largely by their schools.

I am the typical British aspiring working class. To be called 'elite' by people who have inherited wealth and run hedge funds or worked in the City of London, I don't criticise them for it, but the idea is frankly laughable. Just ridiculous.