Public Education Quotes - Page 3

• If charter schools are not more successful on average than the public schools they replace, what is accomplished by demolishing public education? What is the rationale for authorizing for-profit charters or charter management organizations with high-paid executives, since their profits and high salaries are paid by taxpayers' dollars?

  Diane Ravitch

  School, Successful, Average

  Diane Ravitch (2013). “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools”, p.219, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we've always had a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven't had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Education, Children, Kids

  "'Collective' outrage over MSNBC promo". "The Five", www.foxnews.com. April 9, 2013.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• You cannot get through the density of the propaganda with which the American people, through the dreaded media, have been filled and the horrible public educational system we have for the average person. It's just grotesque.

  Gore Vidal

  Educational, Media, Average

  "Gore Vidal's America: Gore Vidal on liberty". The Real News Interview, therealnews.com. July 11, 2007.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The public library is a center of public happiness first, of public education next.

  John Cotton Dana

  Library, Next, Firsts

  John Cotton Dana (2012). “A Library Primer”, p.16, tredition

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am very proud of the quality of public education in Nebraska, but I believe we have an obligation to continually assess whether our system is meeting 21st Century education needs.

  Dave Heineman

  Believe, Quality, Proud

  7 Copy quote

• Racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional.....All provisions of federal, state or local law requiring or permitting such discrimination must yield to this principle.

  Earl Warren

  Yield, Law, Principles

  22 Copy quote

• Education is the key to perpetuation of the [god] virus for the Taliban, Baptist or Catholic. If the virus cannot control public education, it will seek to divert resources from public coffers to fundamentalist school funding. From the madrassa schools of Pakistan to the Christian push for school vouchers in the United States and the religious home school movement, religions seek to control education or to control the resources for education.

  Darrel Ray

  Christian, Religious, School

  "The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture". Book by Darrel Ray, 2009.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think Democrats are right. We fight for the American dream, for the environment, for privacy rights, a woman's right to choose, a good public education system.

  Barbara Boxer

  Dream, Fighting, Thinking

  13 Copy quote

• We stand in the shadow of Jefferson who believed that a society founded upon the rule of law and liberty was dependent upon public education and the diffusion of knowledge.

  Matt Blunt

  Stupid, Law, Shadow

  26 Copy quote

• American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?

  Diane Ravitch

  Education, Business, School

  Diane Ravitch (2016). “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, p.236, Basic Books

  75 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill, and lie to make money. They throw poor people out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship money and power.

  Chris Hedges

  Crush, Lying, War

  147 Copy quote

• I believe public education is the new civil rights battle and I support charter schools.

  Andrew Cuomo

  Believe, School, Rights

  74 Copy quote

• What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and '60s: the interstate-highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Technology, Envy, Immigration

  50 Copy quote

• [The] erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardised citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Knowledge, Independent, Science

  10 Copy quote

• Most teachers have little control over school policy or curriculum or choice of texts or special placement of students, but most have a great deal of autonomy inside the classroom. To a degree shared by only a few other occupations, such as police work, public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid.

  Tracy Kidder

  Teacher, Teaching, School

  Tracy Kidder (1989). “Among School Children”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe that prayer in public schools should be voluntary. It is difficult for me to see how religious exercises can be a requirement in public schools, given our Constitutional requirement of separation of church and state. I feel that the highly desirable goal of religious education must be principally the responsibility of church and home. I do not believe that public education should show any hostility toward religion, and neither should it inhibit voluntary participation, if it does not interfere with the educational process.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Religious, Prayer, Educational

  Jimmy Carter, Gerald R. Ford (1979). “The Presidential Campaign 1976: President Gerald R. Ford. 2. v”

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Evolution is not controversial in the field of science. It's controversial in the public sphere because public education is highly politicized.

  Eugenie Scott

  Fields, Spheres, Evolution

  6 Copy quote

• We're first on executions. We're 49th in funding public education. We're in a race with Mississippi for the bottom, and we're winning.

  Kinky Friedman

  Winning, Race, Firsts

  "Kinky Friedman Talks with Bill O'Reilly About Why He Wants to be Governor of Texas". The O'Reilly Factor" with Bill O'Reilly, www.foxnews.com. March 14, 2005.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Denise Juneau

  Encouragement, Jobs, Believe

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Denise Juneau

  Believe, School, Kids

  4 Copy quote

• While the romanticized ideal of universal public education resonates with the cognoscenti who oppose vouchers, poor urban families just want the best education for their children, who will certainly need it to function in our high-tech and advanced society.

  Clarence Thomas

  Children, Needs, Politics

  8 Copy quote

• I am and have always been a strong proponent of public education. But by the virtue of its very nature - publicly funded schools cannot offer the type of spiritual education that Catholic schools have long provided.

  Mark Foley

  Spiritual, Strong, School

  6 Copy quote

• The terrible state of public education has paid huge dividends in ignorance. Huge. We now have a country that can be told blatant lies - easily checkable, blatant lies - and I'm not talking about the covert workings of the CIA. When we have a terrorist attack, on September 11, 2001 with 19 men - 15 of them are Saudis - and five minutes later the whole country thinks they're from Iraq - how can you have faith in the public? This is an easily checkable fact. The whole country is like the O.J. Simpson jurors.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Country, Lying, Ignorance

  "Ruminator" Magazine, August/September 2005.

  67 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Republicans, with their crazed Reagan fixation, are a last-gasp party, living posthumously, fighting battles on sex, race, immigration and public education long ago won by the other side. They're trying to roll back the clock, but time is passing them by.

  Maureen Dowd

  Sex, Party, Fighting

  12 Copy quote

• No matter what your political persuasion, you can find a guide that makes it quick, easy and painless to exercise your right to vote. Wanna know what a certain proposition put forth by a cadre of undisclosed billionaires which cuts funding for public education, arts and infrastructure means? Use the voting guide!

  Steven Weber

  Art, Mean, Exercise

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source