Robert Reich Quotes

There is no other complex field in our society in which do-it-yourself beats out factory production or market production. Nobody makes his or her own car. But it is still the case that parents can perform the job of educating their children [homeschooling], in many cases better than our present education system.

It is home schooling that is rejecting a narrowness. It is not a radical value system; it's actually quite conservative.

Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.

I taught public school for 26 years, but I just can't do it anymore. For years I asked the school board to let me teach a curriculum that doesn't hurt kids, but they always had other fish to fry. If you hear of a job where I don't have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything, but blind obedience.

People in Detroit aren't just urban gardening. They're starting a new mode of education. They're trying to give children the education to be "solutionaries" rather than people who are going to get jobs in the system. And that is a huge change, a cultural revolution.

It’s about, when did it make sense to say one size fits everybody? It never ever ever made sense to do that, and yet we’re still selling education the same way we sold it when you and I were in high school.

Five years ago, Samira did not want to continue in the regular school system in Iran. To help her with her education, I set up a home school. It wasn't just for my family, it was open to other friends.

I was home schooled, so I never got a yearbook.

The factory model of education is a gargantuan bureaucracy. Some kids are good fits - I wasn't. The system gives you bad grades and tells you you're stupid. You don't think, 'If this kid's not a good fit, it could be the system's fault.'

I've never been a big believer in formal education.

Well, I was actually home-schooled because I was already acting.

Being home-schooled, you really get to explore your hobbies, what you want to do for a living.

School really didn't work for me.

Parents no longer believe that a one-size-fits-all model of learning meets the needs of every child. And they know other options exist, whether magnet, virtual, charter, home, faith-based, or any other combination.

I was home-schooled my entire life and never been in a classroom.

The premise upon which mass compulsion schooling is based is dead wrong. It tries to shoehorn every style, culture, and personality into one ugly boot that fits nobody.

The Victorians were great engineers. They engineered a [schooling] system that was so robust that it's still with us today, continuously producing identical people for a machine that no longer exists.

Drop out of the public schools. The public schools cannot be compromised with.

Apparently almost anyone can do a better job of educating children than our so-called 'educators' in the public schools. Children who are home-schooled by their parents also score higher on tests than children educated in the public schools. ... Successful education shows what is possible, whether in charter schools, private schools, military schools or home-schooling. The challenge is to provide more escape hatches from failing public schools, not only to help those students who escape, but also to force these institutions to get their act together before losing more students and jobs.

I think we're vastly over-invested in universities. Universities should be relatively small and provide excellent education and research in a number of specialized areas. I think the vast majority of young people should be going through non-university, post-secondary training.

I quit school in ninth grade, even though I was good at the studies. I knew I didn't need school for what I wanted.

Brilliant lecturers shouldn't be wasted in lecture rooms: they should appear onTV. We need black market universities, in which people just help each other, and which don't leave out the poor.

It sometimes seems as though we were trying to combine the ideal of no schools at all with the democratic ideal of schools for everybody by having schools without education.

Both of my parents are teachers. One is in the Waldorf school system in Louisville, Ky., and the other runs a music school. I grew up with loving, supportive, encouraging parents that let me make my own world, and I wish that for every single child.

This kind of thing always amazed Ginny--people who just walked away from institutions. People who left school when they didn't see the point. Aunt Peg had done that. Ginny knew she never would. That either made her someone who worked hard and finished things, or someone who didn't have the guts to break away from the pack. Maybe both.