Lawrence O'Donnell Quotes

People's fates in life are decided largely by their schools.

I don't believe in private education.

The goal of the Head Start program is to give at-risk children all across our Nation a fair chance at succeeding in the educational system.

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

Keeping our kids engaged and in school must become a national priority.

I went to an all-boys high school, and they accepted girls in only the two A.P. classes.

I believe primary and secondary education is the bedrock of any sustainable society.

When I took the SAT, I didn't get accepted into a single white school that I applied to. Now I've got honorary degrees from a lot of those schools that rejected me. Things are different now, but not that much different.

I look back and see the kids who made it through school - it made a huge difference in their lives, which made me believe in the power of public education and what it can do for individuals and communities and the state.

A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility.

America is the best half-educated country in the world.

Access to quality education has enabled me to reach far beyond the Bangladeshi village I grew up in.

An education system suits some more than others. It can lead you out into life or lead you on a wild goose chase. It can help to make you miserable, or dull and nasty and insipid, or profoundly stupid in the special way that 'brainy' people can be.

I'm not saying standardized tests are the worst ever, but there's an in-between and I don't think we're there yet. That's what I mean when I say I have an issue with it. There's no way a kid can learn in a class with 40 to 45 people. I had the power to get out of that system and pursue things that I wanted to do and I did that.

My parents came from a poor background and worked their way up because of education. They saw it as a way to succeed. So they cared about me getting straight A grades when I was growing up.

Colleges sort as much as they teach.

Of all our institutions public education is the most important. Everything depends on it, the present and the future.

The Scholastic Aptitude Tests do not predict success any better than the socio economic status of the parents.

Private education can give you confidence, which is marvellous; a sense of entitlement isn't.

I am the product of the American education system. It is a system that has always been on the lookout for bright boys and girls. It spotted me when I was 14, and I owe a tremendous debt to my alma mater.

There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.

I was a pretty unsavvy applicant, and I am grateful that the dean of admissions at Princeton chose to take a chance on a girl from an average public high school in southern Virginia.

As one of the grammar-school generation, I grew up as part of a postwar meritocracy that steadily infiltrated the citadels of power.

I'm not arguing for a return to the grammar school system, but there must be a way of identifying bright kids from ordinary backgrounds and giving them a world-class education.

We must ensure that every single child can go as far as their ability and their aspirations will take them.