Tim Ryan Quotes

For decades, the public school system failed too many children, so we passed the No Child Left Behind Act and demanded schools show results in return for money.

America needs the best education system in the world. We have it in higher education. We do not have it in general education for all of our people - the K-12 education. Other nations are far, far outdoing the United States in that area. We still have the lead in research, but once again, other nations are pouring more into research also. We still have a lead, but to me it's just very, very important that we keep that lead in basic research.

With the enactment of the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, we have taken an important step toward achieving federal education policies that will allow students to learn and achieve at the highest possible level.

Enacted under President George W. Bush's administration with the promise to focus on individual student achievement and overall school performance, No Child Left Behind was heralded as groundbreaking. And in some ways, it was.

The problems of public schools will not be solved by cutting off the source of their funding, which is what vouchers are.

Charter schools are not a panacea.

We're not proposing any shifting of funding from public schools to private schools.

Public education is so important - resisting privatization and charterization, high-stakes testing, and defunding. It's important for New York, but it's also important for the country.

If the goal of the No Child Left Behind Act is to ensure that all children meet state standards, then allowing large numbers of the most disadvantaged children to fall between the cracks is unacceptable.

I... [proposed] three distinct grades of education, reaching all classes. 1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor. 2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of life and such as should be desirable for all who were in easy circumstances. And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences generally and in their highest degree... The expenses of [the elementary] schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor.

Germany, South Korea - these are all countries that are investing massively in education. We've got to do the same thing in America.

The interesting thing now for No Child Left Behind is that there are very few advocates for it; there is no constituency for it. Parents don't like it, administrators don't like it, and kids don't like it, but politicians and bureaucrats in Washington love it--which should be the first indication to you that it is a troubled program.

The people who run the international tests told us, "the biggest predictor of student success is choice." Nations that "attach the money to the kids" and thereby allow parents to choose between different public and private schools have higher test scores. This should be no surprise; competition makes us better.

There's no silver bullet when it comes to helping all children achieve. Great public schools are our best shot.

While the public school rewards failure by throwing more government money at failing school systems, the voucher system does the opposite.

Education standards need to be set at the state level. High standards are an important way to ensure that the education system we are funding is actually working and producing, at a minimum, what we would expect it to.

There is no reason why any public school district in our state should be on a four-day school week. If anything, we should be extending the school year.

By resisting almost any change aimed at improving our public schools, teachers' unions have become a ripe target for reformers across the ideological spectrum.

Get rid of Betsy DeVos.

Charter schools in particular have proven a lifeline for millions of children stuck in chronically failing schools.

Often times, when we talk about improving our public schools, it is easy to come back to the question of money. Are schools basically fine, just underfunded? Millennials say no - more funding isn't the cure-all for what ails our schools.

Millennials are not deeply familiar with school choice, and have some reservations, especially about the types of institutions that a student might choose to attend with taxpayer dollars.

In the US, the problem is primary and secondary education. We've had such an increase in inequality because a quarter of American kids don't finish high school!

As Governor of Texas, I have set high standards for our public schools, and I have met those standards.

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.