Thomas Sowell Quotes

The No Child Left Behind Program was an incentive to the schools to get their kids up to snuff on math and science and reading.

We - again, the, the, the, the bastardization and the demonization over the last few years of teachers and of unions and of collective bargaining, that is not the answer.

With the enactment of the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, we have taken an important step toward achieving federal education policies that will allow students to learn and achieve at the highest possible level.

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.

A third of our kids, after we spend more per student than any country in the world other than a couple rounding errors, 30 percent are college- and/or career-ready.

Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

I am very proud of the quality of public education in Nebraska, but I believe we have an obligation to continually assess whether our system is meeting 21st Century education needs.

I think the problem with schools is not too many incentives but too few. Because of tenure, teachers' unions, and the fact that teachers generally aren't observed in their classrooms, they can do whatever they want in class.

We know the parental support, community support, makes a difference. It's not just the metrics of testing and putting pressure on the schools and on the teachers.

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.

At the federal level, we must help, not hinder, local school boards, parents, teachers and administrators as they make decisions about educating our children.

the superiority of state over private education lies in the fact that in the former the teacher is responsible to society... The result desired by the state is a wholly different one from that desired by parents, guardians, and pupils.

The number one issue facing cities isn’t crimes or jobs anymore, it’s public education.

Schools should be held accountable for results.

We talk a good fight about wanting to have excellent schools when in fact we're content to have average ones.

Equal access to public education has been achieved. But what is the good of access to a failing school?

In the Catholic schools, they spend much less money than the public schools, and they get amazing results. Private schools spend much more money than the public schools, and they get remarkable results.

There's no silver bullet when it comes to helping all children achieve. Great public schools are our best shot.

Many of the best teachers I know are being laid off because their unions value seniority over intellect, passion, creativity, and drive.

I don't think anyone can accept us being 51st in the country dealing with fourth-grade math scores and reading scores in the fourth and sixth grades that are close to the bottom. That's not acceptable. It's not acceptable to the people of Alabama.

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

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.

Standardized tests are an indicator of the kind of service taxpayers are receiving - and whether schools, educators and policymakers are doing their jobs. In the United States, taxpayers spend almost $600 billion annually on public education, so it's not unreasonable to ask what all that money is producing. In fact, it's irresponsible not to know.

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.

We're not spending enough money, but probably we let the teachers unions set curriculas which don't teach them the right things. There's not emphasis on the ...the basic learning that you need if you're going to go on in a college and into post-graduate work.