Major Owens Quotes

We don’t get the quality of people going into teaching that other nations do…. When people go teacher bashing, they are making the problem worse.

In many ways, education is a lousy business. Teachers are not normal economic actors; almost all of them work for less money than they might fetch in some other industry, given their skills and advanced degrees.

I think teaching should be a vocation, and they should be paid more for it.

Teachers make a difference, and we would serve our students better by focusing on attracting and retaining the quality teachers by raising teacher pay.

Paying teachers more improves student achievement.

There are teachers' unions around the country realizing they want to improve standards of the profession, improve the quality of their profession, and ultimately attract the best and the brightest to their profession. The vast majority of teachers are dedicated and committed.

Without any doubt at all, teacher quality is the fundamental differentiator. Not just, incidentally, of education, but I would argue, probably the biggest single differentiator of success for the nations of the 21st Century.

Why don't we have enough teachers of math and science in the public schools? One answer is well, if they knew the subject well, they'd also know enough to work for Google or Goldman Sachs or God knows where.

There is no education system in the world - none at all - that's better than its average teacher.

The impending teacher shortage is the most critical education issue we will face in the next decade.

Teacher compensation isn't the only factor in cultivating great teaching. Other important priorities include changing how we measure student performance, providing more flexibility to teacher-preparation programs, and improving how we train and support principals.

Given the professionalism of Michigan teachers, I think they're not teaching because of the financial rewards.

To get enough of the teachers we need, teaching has to be a great job where talented people are supported and rewarded.

There is a shortage of teachers but the January 2001 schools census showed that teacher numbers were at their highest level than at any time since 1984 - and 11,000 higher than 1997.

I am deeply concerned with the diminution of the teaching strength of the country as a result of the disproportionately low salaries that are paid to teachers throughout the country.

… while they're adding teachers in places like South Korea, we're laying them off in droves. It's unfair to our kids. It undermines their future and ours. And it has to stop. Pass this bill, and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong.

Israeli teachers are not required to hold an academic degree, and their salaries are the lowest in the Western world.

As a former teacher, it pains me to watch such an essential and rewarding profession suffer due to government neglect.

The last thing we need to do, relating to teachers, is the key to a good education in this country is a strong teacher. I would have a minimum wage for all our teachers, $40,000 per year.

In education, I'm going to try to find what works. One thing I want to do is improve the quality of teachers. There are a lot of people who want to go into teaching; it's fundamentally a very fulfilling profession. But people don't feel they have financial support. We pay starting teachers in particular too little to attract the quality people that we need. I want to make it easier for good people who want to go into teaching to do that.

Good education is linked with good teachers. We need to think how we can have good teachers. India has the capability to produce & export as many teachers to the World as it needs. We need to think about how we can create an environment where children want to become good teachers.

Ensuring all kids have access to an effective, talented teacher needs to be a national priority.

I think good teachers are underpaid.

If we freed up all the money in the certification process, think about how much more money we'd have to put into teacher salaries.

If teaching isn't rewarding and challenging, we're going to continue to lose our best teachers to work in other fields.