Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
No one is mandating merit pay.
I think it's my job to tell the truth.
Money is not the reason that people enter teaching.
Education is the civil rights issue of our generation.
City Year is taking on some of the toughest work in education.
States should not balance their budgets on the backs of students.
So instead of watching TV, we read every night together as a family.
A postsecondary education is the ticket to economic success in America.
There was nothing more important I could do than be supportive as a dad.
Borrowing to pay for college used to be the exception; now it's the rule.
Even in a time of fiscal austerity, education is more than just an expense.
The cost of college should never discourage anyone from going after a valuable degree.
Schools and districts and unions are working together on some really innovative things.
Wherever you find something extraordinary, you’ll find the fingerprints of a great teacher.
I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina.
In America, your zip code or your socioeconomic status should never determine the quality of your education.
Almost 24 million children - one in three - are likely growing up without their father involved in their lives.
Teachers support evaluations based on multiple measures: student growth, classroom observation and feedback from peers and parents.
When I ask teachers why they teach, they almost always say that it is because they want to make a difference in the lives of children.
About two-thirds of bachelor's degree holders borrow to go to school, and on average they're graduating with more than $26,000 in debt.
Other countries haves passed us by. They're outworking us. They're outcompeting us. We have got to wake up and we have got to start moving.
I think every student needs access to technology, and I think technology can be a hugely important vehicle to help level the playing field.
The arts significantly boost student achievement, reduce discipline problems, and increase the odds students will go on to graduate from college.
There's so much that we're doing wrong today. And studies show we're one of three countries that doesn't invest more in disadvantaged communities.
Hungry children are distracted children. We want to make sure nothing gets in the way of our children performing well academically, including hunger.
Whether it's in an inner-city school or a rural community, I want those students to have a chance to take A.P. biology and A.P. physics and marine biology.
We all have a role to play - the President, Congress, parents, students and schools - in making college affordable and keeping the middle class dream alive.
We've seen more reform in the last year than we've seen in decades, and we haven't spent a dime yet. It's staggering how the Recovery Act is driving change.
Teachers say their schools of education did not adequately prepare them for the classroom. They would have welcomed more mentoring and feedback in their early years.
Other countries have outeducated us. They have made this a priority. And a big part of what I'm trying to do, frankly, is raise the profile of education and get America to wake up.
Most teachers still say they love teaching though they wouldn't mind a little more respect for their challenging work and a little less blame for America's educational shortcomings.
To be clear, we the Department of Education want curriculum to be driven by the local level. We are by law prohibited from directing curriculum. We don't have a curriculum department.
Surveys show that many talented and committed young people are reluctant to enter teaching for the long haul because they think the profession is low-paying and not prestigious enough.
To encourage more top-caliber students to choose teaching, teachers should be paid a lot more, with starting salaries more in the range of $60,000 and potential earnings of as much as $150,000.
Far too many of our children today, our students, need remedial education. We have been lying to them. They're not really ready for college. That's not higher education's fault. That's our fault K-12.
We have had this massive effort on K-12 reform, raising standards, great teachers, great principals, turning around chronically failing schools, raising the bar, huge amount of progress. Let's continue that.
Young people know how important it is for dads to be involved in their lives. As I travel the country and talk with students, some of them tell me that their lives would be totally different if their father was around.
The factory model of education is the wrong model for the 21st century. Today, our schools must prepare all students for college and careers-and do far more to personalize instruction and employ the smart use of technology.
I just think we can't do enough of this [student exchanges]... And when you get young children traveling internationally, I think they come back different people. And you can't put a price tag - you can't put a value on that.
I'm just absolutely convinced we have to educate our way to a better economy. That's the only way we're going to get there. This is the best long-term investment we can make. And so I think it's my job to be the truth-teller.
My vision is that schools need to be community centers. Schools need to be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day six, seven days a week, 12 months out of the year, with a whole host of activities, particularly in disadvantaged communities.
State governments generate less revenue in a recession. As state leaders struggle to make up for lost revenue, legislatures tend to cut funding for higher education. Colleges, in turn, answer these funding cuts with tuition hikes.
We need to invest in very different ways. Get the students the support they need, get them the best principals, get them the great teachers, and I promise you those students would do extraordinarily well. I have seen it all my life.
The jobs of the future, as you know so well, are knowledge-based. You need college-educated folks to do this work. And so the consequences for our country are absolutely devastating if we don't start to behave in very different ways.
Whether you look at these recent PISA results, which we are mediocre at best, whether you look at a 25 percent dropout rate in this country, whether you look at, in one generation, we're not doing what we need to be doing to keep America great.
Historically the Department of Education hasn't been doing enough to drive the sustainability movement, and today, I promise that we will be a committed partner in the national effort to build a more environmentally literate and responsible society.
The only way we get better is to look in the mirror, assess our strengths and weaknesses, and figure out where we need to go. But if we run around saying, we're number one, we're number one, and we're not, that doesn't help us get where we need to go.
It's fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from sort of white suburban moms who, all of a sudden, their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, their schools aren't quite as good as they thought they were. And that's pretty scary.
Research shows that children do better in school and are less likely to drop out when fathers are involved. Engaged parents can strengthen communities, mentor and tutor students, and demonstrate through their actions how much they value their children's education.
I believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation. And if you care about promoting opportunity and reducing inequality, the classroom is the place to start. Great teaching is about so much more than education; it is a daily fight for social justice.