School Reform Quotes

We need better public education and more realistic education.

Schools can do extraordinary things given the chance; teachers can do remarkable things if we eliminate the paperwork that sometimes binds them and give them a chance to really teach in our schools.

I'm clear that we do need to improve what's happening in our schools.

The Time to Succeed Coalition brings together an unprecedented group of leaders from education and business, communities and academia to say that it is time to strike the shackles of an outdated school calendar from our disadvantaged schools.

Support charters; insist on change for failing schools.

Like millions of parents, I chose to send my children to a religious school that shares my belief system, which is central to my life. I objected to changes in the school that, in my opinion, did not reflect that belief system.

Our public schools began as ministries of the church; now it is time to return them to the Lord.

America must reduce its fiscal deficit, modernize its infrastructure, and improve its schools.

Frankly, I'm not sure how far I would get if I attended public school today. It's not just that public schools aren't producing the results we want - it's that we're not giving them what they need to help students achieve at high levels. K-12 education in the United States is deeply antiquated.

[Betsy DeVos] does care about charter schools, which are public schools. She does care about choice, which is a perfectly legitimate thing to care about. It's because it's the one issue where the Democratic donor base was really energized, which was the teacher unions.

I mentioned charter schools, and experimenting with our school system, to make it work. I think that's something we really have to pay attention to.

When I was mayor of New York, my views changed. I began as mayor of New York City thinking that I could reform the New York City school system. After two or three years, four years, I became an advocate of choice, of scholarships, and vouchers, and parental choice, because I thought that was the only way to really change the school system.

When you say you don't think we should have public schools, they can't believe you mean that. You must mean that they should be smaller. But you can't really mean no public schools.

Restoring prayer ... will scarcely at this date solve the grievous public school problem. Public schools are expensive and massive centers for cultural and ideological brainwashing, at which they are unfortunately far more effective than in teaching the 3 R's or in keeping simple order within the schools. Any plan to begin dismantling the public school monstrosity is met with effective opposition by the teachers' and educators' unions. Truly radical change is needed to shift education from public to unregulated private schooling, religious and secular, as well as home schooling by parents.

America needs education reform on all levels to expand quality schools, build on past successes, and lower college debt.

The push to defund public schools and reroute taxpayer money to charters and private institutions is actually a very clever strategy by the Right Wing, which has always had a great deal of disdain for a system that forces them to pay taxes toward some other kid's non-religious, science-based education.

Our public education system does a great job. I don't think it's broken. We aren't interested in doing reform for reform's sake. I believe in public education; it did a great job for me. It deserves our support and encouragement.

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

For many years we have spent a great deal of effort and money on school reform. Yet where are we today?

Hillary Clinton wants to leave behind No Child Left Behind.

In my mind, there is no reason public school reform should be a partisan issue.

The way I want to try and end private schools is by making our national education service so good you wouldn't want to waste your money.

I think people don't talk enough about education and what we need to do in our public education system.

Democrats and all public servants just need to be honest. If we have schools that aren't working ... we need to face the facts and fix them.

My opportunity to design school choice systems began in 2003 with a phone call from Jeremy Lack at the New York City Department of Education. He knew of my work on the medical match and wondered if similar efforts might help reorganize the dysfunctional, congested system then used to match students to high schools.