Fred Fisk Quotes

Education means teaching kids how to do stuff and how to think about stuff. Education is a pretty simple concept with a very clear way to measure results: you give some kind of an exam - maybe it's one of those standardized tests all kids hate, maybe it's some kind of essay, but whatever it is, it'll measure the results, and the kids will hate it.

I think there's so much negative influence on children in school settings. It becomes learning by rote to pass a test. It's not contextualized.

Education is the key. But it's the kind of education that we teach that is the key. We don't have it.

What passes for a curriculum in today's schools is little else than a strategy of distraction... It is largely defined to keep students from knowing themselves and their environment in any realistic sense; which is to say, it does not allow inquiry into most of the critical problems that comprise the content of the world outside the school.

If there's one thing that 'No Child Left Behind' has proven, it's that more academics don't make for smarter children - or even higher test scores. And yet we somehow refuse to accept this reality.

Scholarships that allow students to get a good education are important, but first we want to measure the progress that the schools are teaching our students, we want to hold them accountable for the progress, we want to hold the schools accountable for teaching the young people in America.

For any reporter, education is a topic where everything else - money, politics, et cetera - intersects. I have four kids in K through 12, so I'm knee-deep in it. I'm really interested in the philosophy behind it all. Should you just memorize your multiplication tables, or should you understand the concept behind them?

The teacher is commodified, the school is a shop, the subjects are consumer goods. To read, to think, to reflect, isn't a question of want, it's a question of need.

Themes around education and learning run through my work.

Excitement in education and student productivity, the ability to get a result that you want from students, go together and cannot be separated.

Knowing what to expect from a teacher is a really good thing, of course: It lets you get the right answers more quickly than you would otherwise.

We really shouldn't be running education like a supermarket where you compare prices.

It is time to end social promotion in America’ s schools.

Schools should be held accountable for results.

We all know—not just from common wisdom but from hard research—that all children benefit from being in smaller classes.

If we educate our kids well, they will be more competitive.

I believe education is much more important than we assume.

I'm not a policy oriented person. I'm constrained to what I study. But educational policy has not yet taken adequate note of the whole child. Kids are not just their IQ or standardized test scores. It matters whether or not they show up, how hard they work.

I think it's fairly unique to define the end goal of K-12 schooling as helping students become better thinkers, more creative thinkers, and to organize the whole school around creative and critical thinking.

How many more years will our educators continue to lecture us on the evils of whipping children until they bring home high grades? Year after year we listen to these fellows tell us that it is not the grade that counts but the development of the child's personality. After the lecture they go back to all the best schools and reject our children because they have C averages.

Education is a business - the growth business. It cultivates the growth of our learners, translates the growth of new knowledge, and builds professional growth.

We in universities are not in the democracy business. What we do, when we're doing it, is teach and learn.

No Child Left Behind's fourth-grade gains aren't learning gains, they're testing gains. That's why they don't last. The law is a distraction from things that really count.

We often assume that all teachers within a discipline address the same curriculum. This isn't always the case. We frequently find gaps between goals and what is actually taught, and these gaps can have a lasting impact on a child's learning.

'No Child Left Behind' requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms.