Public Schools Quotes

A true infrastructure investment must include transforming our economy to handle the climate crisis, supporting care workers, reforming SSI, making child care universal, rebuilding our crumbling public schools, and much more.

Public schools in the late ’80s and early ’90s were a total mess… we felt that if I was going to have a good educational option in my life, I would have to go to a public school district that actually served its children.

If you just believe in our democracy, and you want an informed electorate, public schools are in your interest, and I think our country is dependent on public schools, whether or not you personally have a kid in the public school system.

Charter schools were supposed to compete with public schools, and in turn, that competition was meant to improve education. But that wasn’t the end result.

As public schools deteriorate, the upper-middle class and wealthy send their kids to private ones. As public pools and playgrounds decay, the better-off buy memberships in private tennis and swimming clubs. As public hospitals decline, the well-off pay premium rates for private care.

A society – any society – is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.

Grammar schools are public schools without the sodomy.

Beating up on public schools is not just our nation’s favorite blood sport, but also a favorite conversational entertainment of the well-off – like debating the most recent toothsome plot twists of ‘Big Love’ – who, of course, have no dog in the fight.

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.

In public schools, classes are bloated – it’s ridiculous.

I would like to see more African-American singers as part of our opera companies. If you take music and the arts out of the public schools, then you’re going to lose a lot of people that you might have discovered were talented, very early.

We’re not proposing any shifting of funding from public schools to private schools.

The very wealthy have little need for state-provided education or health care… They have even less reason to support health insurance for everyone or to worry about the low quality of public schools that plagues much of the country.

My education began in the public schools of Wilmington. During most of these years, from about age 10, I also worked at some job or other after school, on weekends, and in the summer months.

What are called ‘public schools’ in many of America’s wealthy communities aren’t really ‘public’ at all. In effect, they’re private schools, whose tuition is hidden away in the purchase price of upscale homes there, and in the corresponding property taxes.

As the son of a union activist and a lifelong Democrat, I’ve always thought that privatizing our public schools is not the answer. We must strengthen public schools.

In 1933, the Nazis came to power and the more systematic persecution of the Jews followed quickly. Laws were enacted which excluded Jewish children from higher education in public schools.

After high school, I attended the Virginia Military Institute and then Eastern Virginia Medical School – both great public schools that prepared me well for my career as a physician and didn’t saddle me with a load of debt.

I went to Detroit Public Schools: Harms Elementary, Bennett, which is now called Phoenix Academy. This is all in Southwest Detroit. I graduated from Southwestern High School, so I’m a ‘Prospector,’ which is what we used to call each other.

I’m very, very concerned ultimately, as Medicaid costs increase in my state and most states, it’s going to reduce funding for state aid to our public schools, to our higher education institution or higher taxes on the middle class that President Obama said he didn’t want to do. And that’s exactly where he’s headed.

I believe Betsy DeVos has the talent, commitment, and leadership capacity to revitalize our public schools and deliver the promise of opportunity that excellent education provides, and I support her nomination as U.S. Secretary of Education.

Let me go to Clinton’s new proposal: to have uniforms in public schools. And people are doing that. How come they’re doing that? Dress codes! I find that abhorrent.

By resisting almost any change aimed at improving our public schools, teachers’ unions have become a ripe target for reformers across the ideological spectrum.

Public schools were designed as the great equalizers of our society – the place where all children could have access to educational opportunities to make something of themselves in adulthood.

Study after study affirms what I saw in the classroom every day as superintendent of Denver Public Schools: Nothing makes a bigger difference for student learning than great teaching.

Global pandemics, cyberwarfare, information warfare – these are threats that require highly motivated, highly educated bureaucrats; a national health-care system that covers the entire population; public schools that train students to think both deeply and flexibly; and much more.

Often times, when we talk about improving our public schools, it is easy to come back to the question of money. Are schools basically fine, just underfunded? Millennials say no – more funding isn’t the cure-all for what ails our schools.

There are essential elements for our public schools to fully develop the potential of both students and educators. They should be centers of community, where students, families and educators work together to support student success. They should foster collaboration.

As someone who attended six different public schools across America, went to Harvard, and subsequently became a tutor in Manhattan’s affluent Upper East Side, I’ve witnessed firsthand the differences in learning styles between public school educations and private.

There are major efforts being made to dismantle Social Security, the public schools, the post office – anything that benefits the population has to be dismantled. Efforts against the U.S. Postal Service are particularly surreal.

In Barack Obama, we have a great education president who is rebuilding America. His Race to the Top program is doing more to ‘spur us’ to improve our public schools than anything we’ve ever done as a nation.

You can’t be an American if you don’t speak English. Our public schools should be mandated to teach all children in English.

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.

On the surface, public schools can seem egalitarian, especially with their websites’ emphasis on words such as ‘connection,’ ‘community,’ and ‘choice.’ Yet despite this democratic vocabulary, money makes a big difference.

The opportunities of America opened out to me the public schools. They carried me to the professional training of an American university. I began by working with my own hands for my daily bread.

I grew up going to public school, and they were huge public schools. I went to a school that had 3,200 kids, and I had grade school classes with 40-some kids. Discipline was rigid. Most of the learning was rote. It worked.

Encourage public schools to teach American children how to code just after they learn to multiply.

I went to the public schools myself. And they were great for me.

As a former teacher and someone who has devoted her entire career to children and public schools, I understand the pain and frustration of parents who feel their children are not receiving the education they deserve.

Working-class students more often lack the advice, guidance and support needed to navigate the tricky application process, whereas their wealthy peers at top public schools have admissions tutors to help their students game the system.

The Green New Deal for Public Schools represents the level of school infrastructure investment that is urgent and necessary to heal the harm from decades of disinvestment, redlining and cycles of poverty and trauma, particularly for Black and brown children.

There really shouldn’t be public schools, should there?

Education technology is very important because we have a massive challenge in public schools.

Whoever becomes Education Secretary has to have a love and passion for public schools. Not charter schools, not vouchers, but public schools.

If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.

During my time in the state Senate, I’ve worked to make sure every Kansas child has the support they need to succeed. That means access to good public schools, but it also means strong early childhood programs, an accountable child welfare system to protect kids, and affordable, safe child care.

And there should not be a limit on the creation of new public schools. We ought to expand choices for parents.

I studied music at the most remedial level when I was a kid, through the Los Angeles public schools, with a little private instruction.

In America our public schools are intended to be religiously neutral. Our teachers and schools are neither to endorse nor to inhibit religion. I believe this is a very good thing.

Providing better computer science education in public schools to kids, and encouraging girls to participate, is the only way to rewrite stereotypes about tech and really break open the old-boys’ club.

The true value of having Florida Virtual School in this mix is that it creates a gold standard for all providers to meet if they hope to compete for Florida students. This program raises the bar for everybody, even the traditional public schools. And that benefits all our children.

From the streets of Los Angeles to the public schools of the Bronx, there is no state of the Union where Latinos are not becoming local leaders and responsible politicians.

I’m a proud product of the Massachusetts public schools.

My husband and I both attended public schools. We believe in the benefits, both individual and communal, of supporting public schools.

I was born and raised in California and benefited from California’s excellent public schools, from kindergarten through medical school.

It is fast becoming an article of political faith that financing America’s public schools by way of the local property tax is a shame and a civic scandal.

Public schools have given so much to our family – I’ve been proud to fight for them as a state senator and lieutenant governor.

I went to the Alabama public schools at a time when my English teachers, all but one of whom was a woman, taught nothing but the classics. They revered the great British and American writers.

People like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been very busy educating America about just how much socialism we have, from Social Security to Medicare to public schools to public universities, and how much we love that. The truth is that there is no pure socialist or capitalist economy on earth.

I grew up in a segregated community: I couldn’t go to the public schools, beaches, certain parts of town.

Before I was in the Senate, I was a superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, and before that, I was in business.

Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald want to have good public schools, good roads and good health care for the people of Wisconsin. We just have to find a way to do it. I think we can.

I never like the TV or movie Harvard characters. The fact of the matter is that most people who go to Harvard went to public schools and weren’t in final clubs. I didn’t even know that final clubs existed until I was a senior.

The phenomenon of home schooling is a wonderful example of the American can-do attitude. Growing numbers of parents have become disenchanted with government-run public schools. Many parents have simply taken matters into their own hands, literally.

People not only want to support public schools, but people warm to this idea of being a philanthropist, even if they might have only have $5 to spare.

I am committed to elevating our public schools.

When I was 27 years old, I left a very demanding job in management consulting for a job that was even more demanding: teaching. I went to teach seventh graders math in the New York City public schools.

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

Far be it for the public schools to teach this, but the U.S.A. was founded on basic Judeo-Christian principles. Don’t believe me – take a trip to Washington D.C. and tour the Supreme Court building. There you will see a sculpted copy of the Ten Commandments on the wall.

Connecticut’s public schools are among the best in the nation, but there’s more that we can do to close achievement gaps so that we can provide more of our youngest students with the tools they need to achieve careers in leading fields when they become adults.

I went to really good New York City public schools that had arts programs. So in junior high, I got into the drama department. From there, I went to a performing arts high school in New York City called Laguardia and I just kind of fell into the professional side by happenstance.

The public schools I attended were dominated by athletics and rarely inspiring intellectually, but I enjoyed a small circle of interesting friends despite my ineptitude at team sports and my preference for reading.

If you don’t live in an area with good public schools, you can move to a different place if you have the financial means to do so.

When I was superintendent of Denver Public Schools, I saw the potential of some of our best and brightest students cut short, punished for the actions of others – kids who had grown up and done well in our school system, and kids who know no other home but America. This is unacceptable.

And then the conditions of safety – or lack of safety – for teachers in public schools, and the disparity between public schools and private schools is shameful.

I started working at age thirteen. I’m a product of public schools, I’m a product of a public university. I started my first company when I was 21. I’ve subsequently never worked for anybody else. I started that first business when I was still in college.

Second, when comparing private school and public school test scores, it’s like apples and oranges. Public schools have to take everyone, but private schools can be selective. It’s not accurate or fair to compare the job they do.

Through the 1980s and ’90s, evangelicals sought to turn back the forces of secularization. Groups like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition pressed for laws recognizing Christianity’s unique place in American life, including laws that would allow prayer in public schools and Christian displays in public places.

I am old enough to remember when America’s K-12 public schools were the best in the world. I am a proud graduate of them, and I credit much of my success to what I learned in Detroit Public Schools and at Michigan State University.

Marylanders have led the nation in adopting a balanced approach to revenues and investments because we know that in order to maintain and build the #1 public schools in the nation, we had to ask everyone to pay their fair share. We need Congress to do the same.

I went to public schools, which is to say publicly financed.

It’s time to update traditional public schools, charter schools, home schools, online schools and parochial schools. Let the dollars follow the child instead of forcing the child to follow the dollars, so that every child has the opportunity to attain an education.

I just went to your typical public schools, and my dad would take us to the movies every week, or he’d buy scalped tickets to San Antonio Spurs games. I remember I was four or five years old and my parents, who were very young, took us to see The Police in Austin, and Iggy Pop opened.

When state funding for Irvine public schools began to diminish some time ago, my Irvine Company colleagues helped me to provide private funding support for continuation of basic science, art and music programs that had been eliminated by lack of state funding.

The arts are suffering amongst public schools, but also, minority theater companies are struggling, and I firmly believe in freedom of expression through the arts.

If, as the popular saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, the people who run our public schools fit that description.

All socio-political phenomena in the U.K. come laden with the baggage of a class-based theory or two attached to them. In the case of gay Tories, there is one particularly silly variant of the category, which asserts that gayness is bred in public schools and thus fits with Conservatism like hand in glove.

Better teacher pay combined with scholarships in exchange for teaching in our public schools can help North Carolina attract and keep talented teachers.

I’ll put working families first by fighting to increase access to affordable health care, improve our public schools, and create more jobs that pay good wages.

We need a Green New Deal for Public Housing, as my colleague and friend Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has proposed. We need a Green New Deal for Cities, as my friend Cori Bush has proposed. And we need a Green New Deal for Public Schools.

In the Catholic schools, they spend much less money than the public schools, and they get amazing results. Private schools spend much more money than the public schools, and they get remarkable results.

Public schools helped create the idea of America and inculcate Americans with a few rudiments of knowledge. To judge by that very American item, the Internet, a few rudiments is all anyone cares to have.

Many well-meaning intelligent people have argued since the May 17, 1954, decision of the United States Supreme Court outlawing segregation in the public schools that communication between the races has broken down.

I’m a product of public schools. They are resource-challenged, and when you take those dollars away from public schools and send them to private schools, you’re further starving the system.

It’s so important to that we go into the public schools and we feed all of the kids something that is really good for them.

I think there are really are some public schools, incredibly successful public schools, that are inculcating a real educational ethic in their students.

During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially. During that time the gap between black and white achievement narrowed.

I am most proud of what sfCiti has accomplished with the ‘Circle the Schools’ program, which engages companies to enter into long-term partnerships with San Francisco public schools, using an adopt-a-school model.

Ensuring preschool education for all and investing more in public schools is essential if the U.S. is to avoid becoming a neo-feudal country where advantages and disadvantages are passed on from one generation to the next.

‘Middle class’ used to mean having two children and sending them to high-quality public schools, or even occasionally to private schools. It meant new brown Stride Rite Mary Janes with little purple and silver flowers when the old shoes were pinching the toes.

Harvard produces leaders. People with Harvard degrees go on to become administrators in high-level positions in state educational departments and in public schools around the country.

As governor, I’ll keep fighting for policies that will actually put more money in the pockets of workers, make it easier for everyone to get health care, and improve our public schools.

My parents found good paying jobs, educated me and my brother in wonderful public schools, and entered the middle class.

I am a mother with kids in the public schools. People should know that. I’m not just some policy maker who’s totally detached from the rest of the community.

I wanted to find ways for colleges and universities to become involved with public schools to help young people prepare for college.

One of my main legislative efforts in education is to help expand and replicate successful charter schools. Charter schools are public schools with site-based governance.

I went to several public schools. I went to religious school. I was thrown out of Hebrew school, which was the final straw. They said, ‘God doesn’t like you anymore. Go eat pork.’

Uber is hardly the first company to exploit the financial vulnerability of teachers – and the desperation of public schools more broadly – to score PR points. Amazon, Boeing, Bank of America, and other corporations have played the part of school benefactor, offering everything from reward programs to school supplies.

So I want my kids to go to public schools because I think it’s a better education overall.

We don’t have drama in public schools in France. I had never taking an acting class.

In my opinion, right up there with free public schools, our free public library system is what makes citizenship possible, even what makes America great.