Stephen Murdoch Quotes

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

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.

When I took the SAT, I didn't get accepted into a single white school that I applied to. Now I've got honorary degrees from a lot of those schools that rejected me. Things are different now, but not that much different.

If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guarantee you that.

My parents came from a poor background and worked their way up because of education. They saw it as a way to succeed. So they cared about me getting straight A grades when I was growing up.

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.

Imagine filling a college with the first 1,000 students to get perfect SATs. Whatever the racial composition of that class would be, the notion seems absurd because we know that college in America is supposed to be about creating citizens and leaders in a diverse nation.

Many people want to send their children to faith schools because they get good exam results, but they're not foolish enough to believe that it's because of faith that they get good exam results.

Over time, my students have gotten richer and more educated.

An education system suits some more than others. It can lead you out into life or lead you on a wild goose chase. It can help to make you miserable, or dull and nasty and insipid, or profoundly stupid in the special way that 'brainy' people can be.

Children from a given family background, when put in schools of different social compositions, will achieve at quite different levels.

Better educated than wealthy

Schools should be held accountable for results.

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.

Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?

If my child were in a school where he was not learning, I would not wait for a gathering of social scientists to tell me whether it was okay for me to send him to another school.

There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.

In a world as competitive as ours, the child who does not get a decent education is condemned to the fringes of society. I think all Australians agree that this is intolerable. So we must demand as much of our schools as we do of our sports teams - and ensure that they keep the Australian dream alive for every child.

Education seems to be placing increased emphasis on assessment and tracking, which means parents are terrified that if their kid doesn't exceed their expected learning level at six years old, they are immediately put in the class that ends up working at McDonald's.

When it comes to efficiency, standardized tests almost sound heaven-sent.

My dad had to quit school when he was in third grade. My mom had to quit school. They didn't know what I needed, and I didn't know what I needed to keep wrestling and go to school, so that's why I had to go to community college.

You must realize that honorary degrees are given generally to people whose SAT scores were too low to get them into schools the regular way. As a matter of fact, it was my SAT scores that led me into my present vocation in life, comedy.

We all want merit to mean something, and we all may be tempted to reduce that meaning to something measurable and concrete like an SAT score. The reality, though, is that who deserves entry into an institution depends on what the institution exists to do.

From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools, and I know that they are a key to being sure that every child has a chance to succeed and to rise in the world.

We have a large underclass in Britain, and a fairly low standard of education. Our best universities are extremely good, but a very significant proportion of the British population that comes out of compulsory schooling with very low standards of education.