education legislation Quotes

Betsy DeVos is not the most informed person on education policy, but I have seen her present a few times, and she presents as a pretty respectable, intelligent person who has cared passionately about education and cares about charter schools.

When I talk to teachers, parents, superintendents, my colleagues, everyone wants to fix No Child Left behind. There is great dissatisfaction with No Child Left Behind.

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.

First, this law - the National Defense Education Act - ended years and years of debate about one controversial question: 'Shall the Federal Government, with all its massive resources, get directly involved in aiding American education?' The answer this law gave was a loud 'Yes!' - and thus we paved the way for a new era of support for education in America. This law, in fact, helped make possible more than 50 new education laws passed in my administration.

My gut reaction [on Betsy DeVos] was, oh, my God. We are now back into the education wars.

The State shall make no law with respect to the establishment of education.

I don't think that I need to tell you how important to the outcome of that race is the education legislation that is now before the Congress. I hope that it is important enough that most of you have studied it in detail. I hope that you understand that it represents the very best thinking that the leading educators of this country can produce.

In DC, policymakers think that if we can only have high enough standards, tough enough tests, and hold people accountable, we can close the achievement gap. And it hasn't happened. Yet the new law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, is based on the same test-based and market-driven framework and ideology, except it lets the states do it.