Sonny Perdue Quotes

You wouldn't tolerate an underperforming surgeon in an operating theatre, or a underperforming midwife at your child's birth. Why is it that we tolerate underperforming teachers in the classroom?

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 have become unable to think of better education except in terms of more complex schools and of teachers trained for ever longer periods.

Teachers know how to improve education.

If you improve a teacher's self-esteem, confidence, communication skills or stress levels, you improve that teacher's overall effectiveness across the curriculum.

Teachers support evaluations based on multiple measures: student growth, classroom observation and feedback from peers and parents.

I tell young teachers who are determined to dissent from some of the Draconian aspects of the current orthodoxy that the best form of protection is to be incredibly good at what you do and keep good discipline in class.

We had rising student achievement across the board because high standards, robust accountability, ending social promotion in third grade, real school choice across the board, challenging the teachers union and beating them is the way to go.

We need to drive down requirements for the schools. In the 19th century, we increased the quality of the schools by higher education saying, 'You can't come in unless you have these skills, unless you've taken these courses.' We did that in Wisconsin when I was there, it helped to transform the secondary school system.

I think we've got outstanding teaching in Michigan classrooms.

We're not trying to be the only route into teaching. We do put enormous energy into understanding what differentiates the most successful teachers.

The main thing I am interested in is my experience as a teacher.

The office of the public teacher is an unenviable and thankless one.

We can pay teachers a hundred thousand dollars a year, and we'll do nothing to improve our schools as long as we keep the A, B, C, D, F grading system.

I do think we know that a teacher who knows what he or she is doing, knows their subject matter, and knows how to impart knowledge to kids is a critical piece of closing the achievement gap.

Teachers say their schools of education did not adequately prepare them for the classroom. They would have welcomed more mentoring and feedback in their early years.

There has been so much recent talk of progress in the areas of curriculum innovation and textbook revision that few people outside the field of teaching understand how bad most of our elementary school materials still are.

Parents matter, buildings count, curriculum choices, materials, resources - all these things are important in a top-class education. But, in the end, it comes down to the teachers.

School district policies and practices have not kept pace with student and teacher needs.

We need innovation in education and dedication to the task before us.

I think it's appropriate that we simplify, clarify and strengthen, so instead of this nebulousness, we have clarity and authority invested in teachers once more.

Federal oversight has focused primarily on fiscal accountability and not on educational accountability.

I'm a little bit tired of people getting credit for improving education by doing the cheapest thing they can do, which is to call for the manipulation of test scores or to create new standards.

Teaching is the profession that makes all other professions possible and yet we do not treat teachers as professionals.

The problem with public school is not overcrowding in the classroom. The problem is not teacher unions. The problem is not underfunding or lack of computer equipment. The problem is your damn kids.