Thomas Friedman Quotes

Parents should continue to become more involved with their communities, and more involved in their children's education.

As regards parents, I should like to see them as highly educated as possible, and I do not restrict this remark to fathers alone.

My father once said about being a parent that it is the only thing you do that requires a very long period of learning, and at about the time that you are becoming competent, you don't need the skills anymore. Notwithstanding this modest assessment of their parenting skills, they were wonderful parents.

There is nothing more valuable than great classroom instruction. But let's stop putting the whole burden on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parents can make every teacher more effective.

The government cannot overcome bad parenting. What our leaders can do is publicly condemn irresponsible parental behavior in vivid terms.

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.

You can become very serious as a parent. That's got to be fought against.

No matter what, it is very tricky and difficult just to be a good parent at all. I have a lot of help. And for that I'm very grateful.

I'm worried about parents who aren't parenting.

Parents can shape a child, but a great teacher can, too.

I married an excellent parent, but I'm not sure that I've made a great parent.

I remind everyone: Whether you school them at home or send them to school, you as a parent have the responsibility to make sure they learn and behave. Teachers and principals may help, but parents are the ones who must accept responsibility.

The only group in America that deserves to scrutinize what we are doing... are parents.

Few things are more important to our country's future than recruiting and keeping great teachers in our schools.

If you bring a child into this world, whether it's planned or an accident, you'd better make sure you can care for it. You have to be around. You make time. It's as simple as that.

If you have a child, I said, you have a responsibility at least to stay alive.

Children are our second chance to have a great parent-child relationship.

There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.

This bringing up of children is so blithely undertaken by many of us, and the vast majority have had no training. It is one of those professions that every woman thinks she can undertake, so nobody really prepares for it.

The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of skin or where they come from. It is not who their parents are or how much money they have. It is who their teacher is.

I want to be an involved parent in my daughter's life and do the things that other parents do, like go to the PTA meetings.

As a parent, when I fail to listen to my kids, when our kids stop bringing us our problems, we have all failed as parents and as leaders.

Parenting is more than a numbers game: it's a question of whether people are equipped for the toughest job they will ever be asked to do.

If there is one thing educators can agree on, it's this: children do better in school when their parents get involved in their learning.

Educating a child won't be difficult if you get through to the parent.