Walter E. Williams Quotes

90 percent of American schoolchildren are in public schools. And the emphasis on private schools and charter schools and parochial schools is not unimportant.

I'm not sure Betsy DeVos has ever spent a day in a public school. And I don't - I'm pretty sure Donald Trump hasn't.

The vast majority of students in this country will continue to attend public schools.

Apparently almost anyone can do a better job of educating children than our so-called 'educators' in the public schools. Children who are home-schooled by their parents also score higher on tests than children educated in the public schools. ... Successful education shows what is possible, whether in charter schools, private schools, military schools or home-schooling. The challenge is to provide more escape hatches from failing public schools, not only to help those students who escape, but also to force these institutions to get their act together before losing more students and jobs.

If we trust parents to choose child care for their children, and we trust them to help their children choose a college to attend – and both those systems have been so successful – why do we not also trust them to choose the best elementary or high school for their children?

The public school system is not about educating black children. Never has been. Inner-city schools are about social control. Period. They’re operated as holding pens—miniature jails, really. It’s only when black children start breaking out of their pens and bothering white people that society even pays any attention to the issue of whether these children are being educated.

[Betsy DeVos] does care about charter schools, which are public schools. She does care about choice, which is a perfectly legitimate thing to care about. It's because it's the one issue where the Democratic donor base was really energized, which was the teacher unions.

Free education for all children in public schools... Combination of education with industrial production

For decades, the public school system failed too many children, so we passed the No Child Left Behind Act and demanded schools show results in return for money.

The people who run the international tests told us, "the biggest predictor of student success is choice." Nations that "attach the money to the kids" and thereby allow parents to choose between different public and private schools have higher test scores. This should be no surprise; competition makes us better.

The single most prevalent form of child abuse in this country is the act of sending a child to a government school. We worry incessantly about the separation of church and state. We would do well to devote half as much attention to the separation of government and education.

When you say you don't think we should have public schools, they can't believe you mean that. You must mean that they should be smaller. But you can't really mean no public schools.

Not every child learns for the same purpose, not every child thrives in the same settings and schools. Limiting a child to just one opportunity does nothing more than limit that child's future. The way forward must involve more public charter schools, which offer parents a tuition-free alternative to their neighborhood school.

Public education is so important - resisting privatization and charterization, high-stakes testing, and defunding. It's important for New York, but it's also important for the country.

I think charter schools, choice, and frankly school standards need a champion.

I do look upon the secretary of education's primary responsibility as the quality of education that - and improving the education that every child in American public schools receives.

Just as members of American teachers unions often send their own children to private schools, so unionized workers at government-run hospitals in Britain have insurance that allows them to go to private hospitals. In both cases, those on the inside realize how bad these institutions are, regardless of what they say to those on the outside.

The path to a better future goes directly through our public schools. I have nothing against private schools, parochial schools and home schooling, and I think that parents with the means and inclination should choose whatever they believe is best for their children. But those choices cannot compete, and cannot come at the expense of what has been -- and what must always be -- the great equalizer in our society, a free and equal public education.

American education will be determined by the quality of American public education, and that's public schools that are available.

I was aware that a quarter of the children in the country are born in poverty, and that the condition of public schools in California was disastrous.

Restoring prayer ... will scarcely at this date solve the grievous public school problem. Public schools are expensive and massive centers for cultural and ideological brainwashing, at which they are unfortunately far more effective than in teaching the 3 R's or in keeping simple order within the schools. Any plan to begin dismantling the public school monstrosity is met with effective opposition by the teachers' and educators' unions. Truly radical change is needed to shift education from public to unregulated private schooling, religious and secular, as well as home schooling by parents.

How do we redefine education so that 30-50 percent of inner-city children do not drop out of school, thus ensuring that millions will end up in prison?

School choice is one of the strongest ways we have to educate our children, .. believes in school choice and he is going to work hard to enact school choice.

There is no accountability in the public school system - except for coaches. You know what happens to a losing coach. You fire him. A losing teacher can go on losing for 30 years and then go to glory.

Reversed [Hillary Clinton's] position on charter schools, reversed her position on changing the way our urban education is run, because she has sold out to the teachers union.