Clint Smith Quotes

Teachers should not need to have to buy books for the kids, or pencils and pens. That's absurd.

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.

I watch too much cable, I admit. Day after day it gets frustrating. Yesterday I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout - but I know that's not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about.

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

… 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.

Too often, I hear stories of teachers and parents spending part of their paychecks to ensure there are supplies in the classroom - even basic necessities like pens, pencils and paper. This is unacceptable.

I've visited schools all across our state, and the message is clear. Our kids have needs today, and our educators need more resources to do their jobs.

In the United States we have concentrated tremendous sums of money on the educational plant, seemingly with the idea that the right number of buildings will turn out the right number of graduates. Yet the teachers who actually instruct the future citizens of our country are more often than not miserably paid. If in the future we find ourselves with a lot of fourth-rate citizens, we have only ourselves to blame.

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

From the time I started school, it was clear to everyone that I wasn't learning at the same pace as other kids.

At the moment, in Britain we're facing such enormous cutbacks in education programs and music programs and art programs that you feel you are knocking your head against a brick wall.

I went to school for special education. I always assumed when I had the opportunity I would love to try and help kids with disabilities.

You know, there are some areas of the state that are providing enormous help to their students; there are others where they're not doing what they can.

I haven't met one parent or one teacher in Missouri who thinks we should balance the budget by taking money from kids' classrooms.

It is vital that teachers can be paid more without having to leave the classroom. This will be particularly important to schools in the most disadvantaged areas as it will empower them to attract and recruit the best teachers.

Realistically, I think we are not prepared to go home until we do get more teachers and lower class sizes.

I studied with a blind teacher from about 5 until I was 16, at two different schools. From the age of 12 until 16, I was in a boarding school-which, I believe, at that time was compulsory for blind children.

Kids in urban and rural areas face so many challenges, and they show up at schools that don't have the extra capacity or extra resources to meet their needs.

I'd like to work with kids in special education - younger kids.

I chose to keep teachers in classrooms rather than prisoners in prison..

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.

We are having trouble finding teachers to teach STEM. We also need to make sure schools have the resources. Some communities have multiple computers for each student in their schools. Other schools don't have textbooks, let alone computers.

Down syndrome kids can learn. Like Corky. That's the way I feel about it... For those kids who have Down syndrome, to give them a chance.

In too many ways, Ohio is being run for the benefit of those who have already made it, and too many of our friends and neighbors are being left behind. Nowhere is this more evident than in the cuts to police officers, firefighters, nurses, teachers, and to our local schools, while property and sales taxes are going up.

California is the highest-tax state in the nation and has been for a long time. It has the highest-paid teachers in the nation, by far - $400 a month more than New Jersey - and yet California is the third lowest state on test scores for fourth and eighth grade English and math in the nation, and has been at the low level for a long, long time.