Spike Lee Quotes

A country is made not by policy alone, but by its music, its entertainment shows, all of it.

Education is my next big thing. When music and art were taken out of the schools, I went berserk!

If I had girls to educate I would not have them learn both music and drawing.

I'd like to work on putting art programs back in schools.

Schools are really bad now. Schools are not only bad in reading, writing and arithmetic, they're worse in cultural aspects, like in music and art. They don't teach you anything.

I would like to see more African-American singers as part of our opera companies. If you take music and the arts out of the public schools, then you're going to lose a lot of people that you might have discovered were talented, very early.

Taking the arts out of schools is a terrible mistake.

What is American education? What should our students be taught? Is hip-hop something that is worthwhile and useful for students to learn? Of course, if you're learning it from KRS-One, I would say yes.

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.

I used to take musical instruments home from elementary school. There were some music teachers there - we all learned instruments. A lot of us got started in public schools. Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, for example. But now there are no more music teachers in public elementary schools. It's like (Senator) Moynihan said, 'benign neglect.' Just let it rot and fester.

The true value of having Florida Virtual School in this mix is that it creates a gold standard for all providers to meet if they hope to compete for Florida students. This program raises the bar for everybody, even the traditional public schools. And that benefits all our children.

So many schools have cut the music classes out of their curriculum. We're trying to fill that gap by teaching the teachers how to educate the kids about their musical heritage.

Music is an element that should be part and parcel of every child's life via the education system.

A nation creates music. The composer only arranges it.

Is it true that we must accept the music of another race as being that which is American? Have not the white Americans sufficient individuality to develop a characteristic style of composition.

Today the children of our public schools are taught more of the history, heroes, legends, and sagas of the old world than of the land of their birth while they are furnished with little material on the people and institutions that are truly American.

If we are to make any real, speedy and substantial progress, we must earnestly tackle this question and bring our educational policy and program on the lines suited to the genius of our people, consonant with our history and culture, and having regard to the modern conditions and vast developments that have taken place all over the world. .

More than 50 percent of kids who play an instrument go on to college, yet music education programs at the inner city public schools who need them most continue to be hit hard with budget cuts.

I grew up in New York, and I grew up with a mother who was an arts lover herself, and I went to these New York City public schools with these great arts education programs, so it was something that I was lucky enough to be able to be exposed to very early.

When the arts are taken out of the syllabus, people are not going to know what it's like to value the theater.

One of my main legislative efforts in education is to help expand and replicate successful charter schools. Charter schools are public schools with site-based governance.

Disgracefully, the arts have too often borne the brunt of short-sighted cuts to educational budgets.

Like university science departments, the arts have shown how they can earn their way and point to an economically newborn future for this country. They show that the U.K. could be a prime provider of imaginative riches and intellectual adventure, which I think are the two great prizes of the 21st century.

The school curriculum today, particularly American history, is a shame.

You can't bring the arts too soon to kids.