Quotes About Public Education

#1. The left has total control over the public education system, all the way up to the university level. It's something they own, and it's going to have to change.

Rush Limbaugh

#2. 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

#3. Delaware River Power Squadron is dedicated to boating safety through education and civic activities in several locations in Philadelphia while also serving the boating public throughout southern Pennsylvania, the Delaware River, and the Chesapeake Bay.

Robert Brady

#4. I do think students in public school (and private) should be required to study the Bible. As a matter of pure education, it's shocking that we [the americans] are not compelled to learn the book, which is the source of our language, our common stories, our political structure, our conflicts.

David Plotz

#5. Every measurement of where you have more public confidence in creating jobs, American prosperity, controlling crime, health care, providing education, all of these standards, Bill Clinton has considerably high marks. The sole exception is on protecting taxes, which is initially his attack.

Mark Shields

#6. Once we considered education a public expense; we know now that it is a public investment.

Lyndon B. Johnson

#7. Public education is a good foundation on which to build a better life for each of us. And if we want to prove to these children who never made the mess in the first place that education is worth the trouble, our schools have to inspire them so they can do what they ought to do.

Bill Cosby

#8. 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

#9. By working to ensure we live in a society that prioritizes public safety, education, and innovation, entrepreneurship can thrive and create a better world for all of us to live in.

Ron Conway

#10. I guess nobody assumes anybody is a libertarian. It's a more complex political discussion than most people are used to, to explain why you think the way you do about public education or drug laws, and why it's not as simple as being for or against something.

Dave Barry

#11. Lewis had developed a trademark style, slow enough for note taking, loud enough to rouse the dullest listener, straightforward, abundantly furnished with quotations, and lavish in wit.

Philip Zaleski

#12. When it comes to public school education, we have been unwilling to measure our results. We've been unwilling to pay based on performance. We have tenure where, even if you can't teach, you can't get fired. We've been unwilling to invest in new schools.

Michael Bloomberg

#13. As a senator from the only true swing district in the Texas Senate, I've been targeted by the GOP for my outspoken criticism of their extremist attacks on public education and voting rights, to name just two examples.

Wendy Davis

#14. Public education grants secular worldviews an exclusive monopoly in the classroom.

Nancy Pearcey

#15. 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.

Daniel Nathans

#16. Whoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.

Benjamin Franklin

#17. Of all the public services, education is the one I'm most interested in. You get a more dynamic economy, you deal with most social problems, and it's morally right.

George Osborne

#18. I wouldn't be where I am today without the amazing public arts education that I had.

Matthew Morrison

#19. It's hard to improve public education - that's clear.

Bill Gates

#20. All art is based on nonconformity ... Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.

Ben Shahn

#21. Jefferson's fear was that without such a system of public education, the country would end up being ruled by a privileged elite that would recycle itself through a network of private institutions that entrenched their advantages.

Fareed Zakaria

#22. Public education is so important - resisting privatization and charterization, high-stakes testing, and defunding. It's important for New York, but it's also important for the country.

Zephyr Teachout

#23. Public libraries are our great teachers and storytellers, and are a vital adjunct to our schools. In this day of standardized and homogenized education, a library offers individual and personalized learning opportunities second to none.

Julie Andrews

#24. It would be difficult to find in the United States any profession so dedicated to socialism as that of educators, and difficult to find any argument for socialism as popular as the cause of public education.

Kevin D. Williamson

#25. The more efficient causes of progress seem to consist of a good education during youth whilst the brain is impressible, and of a high standard of excellence, inculcated by the ablest and best men, embodied in the laws, customs and traditions of the nation, and enforced by public opinion.

Charles Darwin

#26. Teach For America provides one of the most critical pipelines for bringing new talent into public education.

Eli Broad

#27. Besides taking jobs from American workers, illegal immigration creates huge economic burdens on our health care system, our education system, our criminal justice system, our environment, our infrastructure and our public safety.

Jan C. Ting

#28. I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public, of peace and war.

John Milton

#29. From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools, and I know that they are a key to being sure that every child has a chance to succeed and to rise in the world.

Dick Cheney

#30. My hesitation to send Lotus to public school was not based on the caliber of the teachers. It stemmed from the very nature of conventional education.

Cari Donaldson

#31. Charter schools are just public schools on a slightly longer leash. A dog on a long leash is still a dog on a leash.

Marshall Fritz

#32. Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.

Barry Commoner

#33. Economic growth can enable development if it is supplemented by public policies that encourage circulation of wealth, especially into crucial areas such as public healthcare and education.

Jamshyd Godrej

#34. In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#35. [Homeschooling] ... recipe for genius: More of family and less of school, more of parents and less of peers, more creative freedom and less formal lessons.

Raymond S. Moore

#36. Many of those who argue for vouchers say that they simply want to use competition to improve public education. I don't think it works that way, and I've been watching this for a longtime.

Jonathan Kozol

#37. If you want a good education, go to private schools. If you can't afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.

Paul LePage

#38. I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves
you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.

Ray Bradbury

#39. You can't persuade most of the public that education and making a living aren't the same thing.

Robertson Davies

#40. Close examination of the evidence shows that the poor were being included in private education, and only those who did not want to go to school were missing out. There was no need for public school except as a tool to undermine the church's influence in education.

Gregg Harris

#41. Instead of unfairly demonizing teachers, we should be working with them to find solutions to the problems in our schools and make sure every child gets an outstanding public education.

Albio Sires

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

John Cotton Dana

#43. Everything that we believe in and count on is really in question right now. Our safety net, public education, housing, health care, so many things that are fundamental to a healthy democracy, are under attack. So I think, in general we've got a lot of work to do.

Ai-jen Poo

#44. We have lots of evidence that putting investments in early childhood education, even evidence from very hard-nosed economists, is one of the very best investments that the society can possibly make. And yet we still don't have public support for things like preschools.

Alison Gopnik

#45. Just as China achieved much more than India in the realm of public health and education under an austere Communist regime, so its economic growth under a capitalist-friendly government strikes a visitor from India as nothing less than spectacular.

Pankaj Mishra

#46. A young man passes from our public schools to the universities, ignorant almost of the elements of every branch of useful knowledge.

Charles Babbage

#47. No deliberative body is manifestly less qualified to make decisions about public education than our state Legislature. With a few shining exceptions, most of these clowns don't read, can't write, and clearly can't add.

Carl Hiaasen

#48. 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 a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

H.L. Mencken

#49. The Public provides freedom ... Individualism begins after the roads are built, after individualists have had an education, after medical research has cured their diseases ...

George Lakoff

#50. Lucky enough, through the public school system, I had been able to have some music education, and that gave me something to focus on, and discipline - like a family to feel part of. There was a healthy family.

Flea

#51. Governors of both political parties face a stark choice between unpopular tax increases and drastic cuts in Medicaid, education, public safety and other essential services.

Bill Delahunt

#52. A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected.

Eleanor Roosevelt

#53. Our education serves three purposes. First, we must learn what others think we must know. Second, we cannot profess anything that is not widely accepted. Third, we must learn to hide our own ignorance and never speak about it in public.

D.A. Blankinship

#54. People think I have the benefit of a public school education. I have this suave and debonair label, but really, I'm as common as muck.

Charles Dance

#55. Privatization is a neoliberal and imperialist plan. Health can't be privatized because it is a fundamental human right, nor can education, water, electricity and other public services. They can't be surrendered to private capital that denies the people from their rights.

Hugo Chavez

#56. I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

#57. 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.

Ryan Holmes

#58. We are convinced that the public generally will derive far better results from fixed-value investments, if selected with exceeding care, than from speculative operations, even though these may be aided by considerable education in financial matters.

Benjamin Graham

#59. I think that one thing that people are missing is that we are never going to be able to fix this country's [American] economy in the long run until we fix our public education system.

Michelle Rhee

#60. Father had notions about manhood suffrage, public schools, the education and the elevation of the masses, and the gradual emancipation of the slaves, that did not suit the uncompromising views of people in places like Richmond.

John Sergeant Wise

#61. Privatizing our public schools makes as much sense as privatizing the fire department or or the police department

Diane Ravitch

#62. The belief that public health measures are not intended for people like us is widely held by many people like me. Public health, we assume, is for people with less - less education, less-healthy habits, less access to quality health care, less time and money.

Eula Biss

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

Eugenie Scott

#64. Education is a system of imposed ignorance.

Noam Chomsky

#65. The separation of church and state is extremely important to any of us who hold to the original traditions of our nation. To change these traditions by changing our traditional attitude toward public education would be harmful, I think, to our whole attitude of tolerance in the religious area.

Eleanor Roosevelt

#66. There is no more reason to pay for private education than there is to pay for a private swimming pool for those who do not use public facilities.

Albert Shanker

#67. We have seen a central government taking more and more control over public education, over communications, over transportation, over every detail of our daily lives.

Robert W. Welch Jr.

#68. You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.

Matt Damon

#69. Education is thus a most power ally of humanism, and every public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday school, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teachings?

Charles Francis Potter

#70. Recent decades clearly demonstrate that the more secular our Public Schools become the less successful they become academically.

David Barton

#71. Free education for all children in public schools ... Combination of education with industrial production

Karl Marx

#72. As a retired educator I have seen first-hand the impact a great education can have on a young person's life. I will always be a champion for public schools, our teachers, and our children.

Alma Adams

#73. Out of the public schools comes the greatness of the nation.

Mark Twain

#74. 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.

Eli Broad

#75. Growth can also involve producing services instead of goods. In particular, a major expansion of public and caring services (like child care, education, elder care, and other life-affirming programs) would generate huge increases in GDP and incomes, with virtually no impact on the environment.

Jim Stanford

#76. 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.

Bobby Jindal

#77. The main element of true reconciliation is the public education system.

Nilantha Ilangamuwa

#78. The public education movement has also been an anti-Christian movement ... We can change education in America if you put Christian principles in and Christian pedagogy in. In three years, you would totally revolutionize education in America.

Pat Robertson

#79. So, is there hope for a truly democratic Africa? Long answer: Only if continent-wide improvements in education, human rights and public health are coupled with an aggressive and far-sighted debt-relief program that breaks the cycle of subsistence farming and urban squalor. Short answer: No.

Jon Stewart

#80. We need excellence in public education and if the teachers can't do it, we'll send in a couple of policemen.

Frank Rizzo

#81. The debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.

Noam Chomsky

#82. The private schools and the independent schools like Oprah's are really doing well because they've got the best of everything but it certainly puts the spotlight on a system of public education that is still reeling from the apartheid years [in South Africa].

Charlayne Hunter-Gault

#83. If you would rule the world quietly, you must keep it amused." I notice too, that the ground on which eminent public servants urge the claims of popular education is fear: "This country is filling up with thousands and millions of voters, and you must educate them to keep them from our throats.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#84. Shoot, I must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life as a normal, independent American up there in the Last Frontier, schooled with only public education and a lowly state university degree, because obviously I haven't learned enough to dismiss common sense.

Sarah Palin

#85. From my great-grandfather: not to have attended schools for the public; to have had good teachers at home, and to realize that this is the sort of thing on which one should spend lavishly.

Marcus Aurelius

#86. If the government announced that it was going to allocate a vast tranche of education funding purely to the pupils at the best public schools, there would be a national outcry - and yet this is precisely what the Olympics represents in terms of sports funding.

Will Self

#87. The study of tools as well as of books should have a place in the public schools. Tools, machinery, and the implements of the farmshould be made familiar to every boy, and suitable industrial education should be furnished for every girl.

Rutherford B. Hayes

#88. Reforming public education, cutting property taxes, fixing adult and child protective services and funding our budget can all occur when Democrats and Republicans engage in consensus and cooperation - not cynicism and combat.

Rick Perry

#89. Public education has served as a check on the power of parents, and this is another powerful reason for maintaining it.

John Goodlad

#90. If we get public education right, everything else will follow. But if we get it wrong, not much else will matter.

Steve Kagen

#91. A complete and generous education fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.

John Milton

#92. You look at public education system, charter schools, infrastructure, in so many ways New Orleans has come back stronger.

Drew Brees

#93. The plain, unvarnished truth is that public education is a shoddy, fraudulent piece of goods sold t to the public at an astronomical price. It's time the American consumer knew the extent of the fraud which is victimizing millions of children each year.

Samuel Blumenfeld

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

Major Owens

#95. Since the 1970s, we have witnessed the forces of market fundamentalism strip education of its public values, critical content, and civic responsibilities as part of its broader goal of creating new subjects wedded to consumerism, risk-free relationships, and the destruction of the social state.

Henry Giroux

#96. One of the most devastating enemies of the family is radical sex education in the public school. It is more explicit than necessary for the good of the child. Too much sex education too soon causes undue curiosity and obsession with sex.

Beverly LaHaye

#97. In the Brown decision, the United States Supreme Court unanimously struck down the legal and moral footing of racially segregated public education in this country.

Bobby Scott

#98. You can't just provide power, you also need public education.

Zephyr Teachout

#99. Spending an extra dollar on the D.C. public school system isn't spending an extra dollar on education. Spending an extra dollar with the Pentagon doesn't buy you an extra dollar on defense. Republicans need to look skeptically at military spending.

Grover Norquist

#100. Learning about factory farms and their horrendous treatment of animals is what made me become vegetarian in the first place. I also support the education of the public on adopting pets from animal shelters or saving homeless animals off the street in lieu of buying them from pet shops.

Laura Mennell