Dan Pena Quotes

The gap in education in this country, the unfairness of the schools, is one of the great unfairness in this society.

The system that had grown up in most states is that wealthy districts with an affluent population can afford to spend a lot more on their public school systems than the poorer districts.

Where educational deprivation exists, it breeds conflict and enables repression.

If you're poor, you don't often live near a good school. If it's a competitive public school program, our kids are not prepared to enter those programs.

We cannot ignore the disparity in resources that continue to plague many of our school systems, especially those serving predominantly inner-city minority and impoverished children.

Colleges and universities divide families by income, providing access to the best schools for those with accumulated wealth. Low- or moderate-income families are relegated to the less prestigious schools where the resources for advancement are fewer than those provided at better financed schools.

Evils of the gravest kind are likely to result from the so-called public schools.

In New York City, the idea that district schools advance equality is a myth.

We know that the enemy of upward mobility is not poverty or even other people's success. The enemy of upward mobility is apathy and an educational system that offers choice to the privileged and traps the most vulnerable in unsafe and poor performing schools.

In some parts of the world, students are going to school every day. It's their normal life. But in other part of the world, we are starving for education... it's like a precious gift. It's like a diamond.

Nationally, overwhelmingly non-white schools receive $1,000 less per pupil than overwhelmingly white schools.

The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail.

I am very fortunate I can send my kids to private school, but everybody does not have the money. If you cannot get your kid in a good school today, your kids are going to be behind the eight ball.

If you don't get trained for your SATs in America today, you are at a disadvantage. Training is expensive and a lot of kids don't get trained, perhaps. So I also identify with the kid or the person who has grown up in environments like I've grown up in.

There's no reason why children in inner cities or rural areas do not receive the same quality education or opportunities as those in suburbs or wealthy neighborhoods. If we truly believe in giving all citizens a chance to pursue happiness and pursue their goals, then we cannot continue to marginalize entire groups of people.

I had been very focused on the issue of education disparities in our country, and literally, by the time kids are just nine years old, in low-income communities, they're already three or four grade levels behind nine-year-olds in high-income communities.

Online education that leaves almost everybody behind except for highly motivated students, to me, can't be a viable path to education.

Our experience at Teach For America has been that the more people understand educational inequity, the more they want to do something about it.

Schools are not equal. There are still the haves and the have-nots.

No Child Left Behind widens the gap between the races more than any piece of educational legislation I've seen in 40 years. It denies inner-city kids the critical-thinking skills to interrogate reality.

There will always be places in the world where good schools don't exist and good teachers don't want to go, not just in the developing world but in places of socioeconomic hardship.

I grew up in a very progressive family and with a great educational system, and I asked myself, 'Why doesn't everybody have these opportunities for a good education? So why not give back to these kids who didn't grow up with the same privileges I had?'

In Colombia, education is sometimes considered a luxury, not a human right. And it's not a priority in the agendas of many leaders.

Beating up on public schools is not just our nation's favorite blood sport, but also a favorite conversational entertainment of the well-off - like debating the most recent toothsome plot twists of 'Big Love' - who, of course, have no dog in the fight.

I don't totally believe that all of the politicians see a problem with the gap between the scores of black children and other groups. I believe that many politicians think this has been the way it has always been, so what's the problem?