J. C. Watts Quotes

I do look upon the secretary of education's primary responsibility as the quality of education that - and improving the education that every child in American public schools receives.

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.

I believe there ought to be school choice, so that parents can choose within the public school system.

Arizona is a national leader in school choice with both charter schools and tuition tax credits giving parents and their children more school choices than ever before.

Much of the criticism centered around Betsy DeVos focuses on her lack of experience with public schools. While she has shown some interest in 'protecting' students from the non-existent threat of grizzlies wandering onto their campuses, she has never run, taught in, attended, or sent a child to a public school.

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

Every child has a right to go to high school and end up with a third grade education.

We must fix our broken education system. Every parent deserves a choice as to how to best educate their children so that every child has a chance to fulfill their potential.

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.

The White House, in advancing the agenda for a [school] "choice" plan, rests its faith on market mechanisms. What reason have the black and very poor to lend their credence to a market system that has proved so obdurate and so resistant to their pleas at every turn?

We do need curriculum reform. And it should happen at the state and local level. That is where educational policy belongs, because if a parent is unhappy with what their child is being taught in school, they can go to that local school board or their state legislature, or their governor and get it changed.

It's pretty much how we get anything added to the curriculum. When parents said children needed to be computer literate, the schools started responding. The same thing is true of basic financial literacy.

On the [Betsy] DeVos case, I agree that the gun - her gun position is kind of weird, kind of crazy, but I do think she does know about public schools.

I worry that the weakness - particularly of our public schools - is going to make that less and less true for everybody. And if we ever lose that as our core, then we're going to lose our confidence. We're not going to lead. We're going to protect. We're going to turn inward. That would be very bad for the world. So as a former Secretary of State, I think I can advocate for education as a national security priority.

To me, it looks like an opportunity for school choice. I'd also like to see a pilot program to allow true school choice ? vouchers.

I can imagine no more important contribution to our country's future than a long-term commitment to improving urban K-12 public schools.

Take Washington, D.C., which spends over $10,000 per student for education whose student achievement would be dead last if Mississippi chose to secede from the Union. Suppose Washington gave each parent even a $5,000 voucher - that wouldn't mean less money available per student. To the contrary, holding total education expenditures constant, it'd mean more money per student remaining in public schools.

If we trust parents to choose child care for their children, and we trust them to help their children choose a college to attend – and both those systems have been so successful – why do we not also trust them to choose the best elementary or high school for their children?

How do we redefine education so that 30-50 percent of inner-city children do not drop out of school, thus ensuring that millions will end up in prison?

The role of the federal government, if any, is to create more school choice.

We need to fund No Child Left Behind. We need to start at the beginning and we are not doing the job here in the United States of America.

I'm for higher standards measured in an intellectually honest way, with abundant school choice, ending social promotion. And I know how to do this because as governor of the state of Florida I created the first statewide voucher program in the country, the second statewide voucher program, in the country and the third statewide voucher program in the country.

I have made education a top priority of this Administration because when we get it right, when every child learns, America will be a more hopeful place.

School choice is one of the strongest ways we have to educate our children, .. believes in school choice and he is going to work hard to enact school choice.

We should totally ban for-profit charters. For-profit's first obligation is to its stockholders, not to its children.