socioeconomic barriers to education Quotes

Affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America, because, frankly, if you've got 50 percent of African-American or Latino kids dropping out of high school, it doesn't really matter what you do in terms of affirmative action. Those kids aren't going to college.

There is desperate education inequality in America, and I think every kid deserves a good teacher and a good school regardless of the ZIP code that he or she lives in.

Higher education cannot be a luxury reserved just for a privileged few. It is an economic necessity for every family. And every family should be able to afford it.

Until we reach equality in education, we can't reach equality in the larger society.

I think all of us have really got to redouble our efforts, first of all, to pay attention to the K-12 crisis. The sad fact is that I can look at your zip code and tell whether you're going to get a good education. That's not fair. And secondly, I hope that all of us who were fortunate enough to have benefited will put our time, our resources and our efforts into making sure that kids, particularly kids without means, have a way to achieve.

Education had been a great gift for him [Ziauddin]. He believed that lack of education was the root of all the Pakistan's problems. Ignorance allowed politicians to fool people and bad administrators to be reelected. He believed schooling should be available for all, rich and poor, boys and girls.

The proper education of poor children [is] the ground-work of almost every other kind of charity.... Without this foundation firstlaid, how much kindnessis unavoidably cast away?

In the US, the problem is primary and secondary education. We've had such an increase in inequality because a quarter of American kids don't finish high school!

If you look at the state of California, the children who are not receiving the education that they should are both black and Latino children. And together they would represent a majority of progressive voters in the state of California. And the state is still very, very broken.

I'm going to insist on making sure that we've got decent funding, that we've got enough teachers, that we've got computers in the classroom, but unless you turn off the television set and get over a certain anti-intellectualism that I think pervades some low-income communities, our children are not going to achieve.

Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it. And if we cannot educate today's youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary enrollment will be 5 million greater than 1960? And high school enrollment will rise by 5 million. College enrollment will increase by more than 3 million.