School System Quotes

• I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.

  Anne Sullivan Macy

  Education, Children, Learning

  12 Copy quote

• Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

  Isaac Asimov

  Inspirational, Trust, Education

  Isaac Asimov (1975). “Science Past, Science Future”, Doubleday Books

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• A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another, and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government.

  John Stuart Mill

  School Education, Education And Freedom, Government

  John Stuart Mill (1978). “On Liberty”, Penguin Books

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• ‎A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.

  John Stuart Mill

  Education, Successful, Government

  John Stuart Mill (1978). “On Liberty”, Penguin Books

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• We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Learning, School

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.34, North Atlantic Books

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• In a home school, the kid does 95% of the work. But in a school system, since it's an indoctrination system, a teacher has to do 95% of the work.

  John Taylor Gatto

  Teacher, Home, School

  8 Copy quote

• When students cheat on exams, it's because our school system values grades more than students value learning.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Education, Wisdom, Cheating

  Twitter post from Apr 14, 2013

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• There is no accountability in the public school system - except for coaches. You know what happens to a losing coach. You fire him. A losing teacher can go on losing for 30 years and then go to glory.

  Ross Perot

  Teacher, Teaching, School

  28 Copy quote

• Our public school system is our country's biggest and most inefficient monopoly, yet it keeps demanding more and more money.

  Phyllis Schlafly

  Country, School, Monopoly

  11 Copy quote

• I think it's a scandal what has been happening in the school system so far as lower income classes. The dropout rates, the illiteracy rate, you know literacy in the United States was a lot higher in 1890 than it is now.

  Milton Friedman

  School, Thinking, Class

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• We need to drive down requirements for the schools. In the 19th century, we increased the quality of the schools by higher education saying, 'You can't come in unless you have these skills, unless you've taken these courses.' We did that in Wisconsin when I was there, it helped to transform the secondary school system.

  Donna Shalala

  Taken, School, Skills

  "Meet the Press" with David Gregory, www.nbcnews.com. September 25, 2011.

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• I was very much a product of the public-school system. There was only one other kid in my class who had parents not involved in the stock market or law.

  Daniel Radcliffe

  School, Kids, Law

  TimeOut Interview, www.timeout.com.

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• I pretty much left full-time, formal education when I was 11. So that was when I was taken out of the school system... I think the longest stretch I would go back for was a term and a half when I was about 14.

  Daniel Radcliffe

  Taken, School, Half

  "From Child Actor To Artist: Radcliffe Reflects On Post-Potter Life". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. October 10, 2013.

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• I would like to dissolve the $10 billion national Department of Education created by President Carter and turn schools back to the local school districts, where we built the greatest public school system the world has ever seen. I think I can make a case that the decline in the quality of public education began when federal aid became federal interference.

  Ronald Reagan

  School, Thinking, President

  3 Copy quote

• Today in America, we are trying to prepare students for a high tech world of constant change, but we are doing so by putting them through a school system designed in the early 20th Century that has not seen substantial change in 30 years.

  Janet Napolitano

  School, Technology, Years

  6 Copy quote

• The public school system doesn't get everybody. Every generation has its rebels.

  Rush Limbaugh

  School, Rebel, Generations

  3 Copy quote

• I'm a big believer that there's more power in numbers and the more you can expand the stories that are relevant to both communities, the better. For example, a school that's terrible for black kids is terrible for brown kids. We have to figure out ways to navigate the school systems and make sure that we're investing in a public education system that's beneficial for all kids.

  Soledad O'Brien

  School, Kids, Numbers

  Source: lasentinel.net

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• There are terrific models for success with reluctant readers, but many school systems and state governments need to set aside their 'not invented here' and 'we have more important problems than education' attitudes.

  James Patterson

  Attitude, School, Government

  "How to get your kid to be a fanatic reader". Interview With James Patterson, www.cnn.com. September 28, 2011.

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• My early education was in the public school system of Omaha, where, retrospectively, I realize that my high school training served me in good stead for the basic subjects of mathematics, English, foreign languages and history.

  Lawrence Klein

  School, Training, Language

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• We decided that our first job was to help the schools serving the children from the very lowest income groups. Those families constitute the number one burden, the number one burden in this Nation on the school systems.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Education, Jobs, Children

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1966). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965”, p.227, Best Books on

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• As I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.

  Harper Lee

  Education, Believe, School

  Harper Lee (2014). “To Kill a Mockingbird”, p.23, Harper Collins

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• If you expect the present day school system to give history to you, you are dreaming. This, we have to do ourselves. The Chinese didn't go out in the world and beg people to teach Chinese studies or let them teach Chinese studies. The Japanese didn't do that either. People don't beg other people to restore their history; they do it themselves.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Dream, School, People

  John Henrik Clarke (1991). “Africans at the crossroads: notes for an African world revolution”, Africa World Pr

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• The state of our educational system is a disgrace to our country. We have an elementary and secondary school system in which close to half of the youngsters never graduate properly. It's a disgrace that there is more illiteracy today than there was 100 years ago.

  Milton Friedman

  Country, Educational, School

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.

  Bel Kaufman

  School, Mythology

  Bel Kaufman (2012). “Up the Down Staircase”, p.182, Open Road Media

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• Everybody knows - but no one wants to say - that the Democratic Party has become the party of special interest bigots and racial dividers. It runs the one-party state that controls public services in every major inner city, including the corrupt and failing school systems in which half the students - mainly African American and Hispanic - are denied a shot at the American dream.

  David Horowitz

  Running, Dream, Party

  34 Copy quote