William Weld Quotes

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 hate the fact that public schools like the one I went to have fantastic sports facilities, and state schools don't. That's not fair. That's outrageous.

For too long, we financed our schools in a way that has systematically left large segments of our population behind.

As we segregate by income into different communities, schools in lower-income areas have fewer resources than ever.

Nationally, overwhelmingly non-white schools receive $1,000 less per pupil than overwhelmingly white schools.

Schools are not equal. There are still the haves and the have-nots.

If you're poor, you don't often live near a good school. If it's a competitive public school program, our kids are not prepared to enter those programs.

We still have two public school systems in the United States: One for the haves and one for the have-nots.

One of the most significant factors contributing to the chasm of educational opportunity is the way that schools are funded.

The gap in education in this country, the unfairness of the schools, is one of the great unfairness in this society.

I am very fortunate I can send my kids to private school, but everybody does not have the money. If you cannot get your kid in a good school today, your kids are going to be behind the eight ball.

Beating up on public schools is not just our nation's favorite blood sport, but also a favorite conversational entertainment of the well-off - like debating the most recent toothsome plot twists of 'Big Love' - who, of course, have no dog in the fight.

We cannot ignore the disparity in resources that continue to plague many of our school systems, especially those serving predominantly inner-city minority and impoverished children.

It is fast becoming an article of political faith that financing America's public schools by way of the local property tax is a shame and a civic scandal.

Colleges and universities divide families by income, providing access to the best schools for those with accumulated wealth. Low- or moderate-income families are relegated to the less prestigious schools where the resources for advancement are fewer than those provided at better financed schools.

The folks who run the poverty industry in this town are worried that kids will get a better education at schools that cost half the amount they spend on the public schools. In their shoes, I'd be worried too.

The sheltering of upper income children in private schools not only accelerates the deterioration of public education, it hides its consequences from precisely those people who could do something about it.

Evils of the gravest kind are likely to result from the so-called public schools.

We have a locale-based education system; we have increasing economic segregation. We clearly need a larger federal program to try to help disadvantaged districts.

When I began teaching, my colleagues and I quickly realized that our students didn't have access to the same resources we had growing up. We knew there were supplies and resources that could help our students, but our school district simply couldn't afford them.

You would think that American educators would want our kids, especially our kids from poorer families, to hear what top-rated Oxford students hear. But you'd be wrong. American schools now hide their students from ideas like mine if they don't approve of the man or the message.

We know that the enemy of upward mobility is not poverty or even other people's success. The enemy of upward mobility is apathy and an educational system that offers choice to the privileged and traps the most vulnerable in unsafe and poor performing schools.

Parents don't believe that lifting life-chances in one school means reducing them in another.

The inequalities are greater now than in '92. Some states have equalized per-pupil spending but they set the 'equal level' very low, so that wealthy districts simply raise extra money privately.

The District of Columbia is an extreme example of disconnect between financial input and educational outcome. Unfortunately, extreme is not the same as abnormal.