Zephyr Teachout Quotes

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.

We really shouldn't be running education like a supermarket where you compare prices.

I am increasingly ready to junk the public school system.

Charter schools are not a panacea.

When you say you don't think we should have public schools, they can't believe you mean that. You must mean that they should be smaller. But you can't really mean no public schools.

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.

In my mind, there is no reason public school reform should be a partisan issue.

The number one issue facing cities isn’t crimes or jobs anymore, it’s public education.

The problems of public schools will not be solved by cutting off the source of their funding, which is what vouchers are.

Competition has not worked in education because it has never really been tried.

We all have a stake in ensuring that all students have the schools they deserve and that communities are leading this effort, not being left behind. To do that, we must challenge unchecked charter expansion and the forces driving it.

While the public school rewards failure by throwing more government money at failing school systems, the voucher system does the opposite.

Get rid of Betsy DeVos.

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

Millennials are not deeply familiar with school choice, and have some reservations, especially about the types of institutions that a student might choose to attend with taxpayer dollars.

90 percent of American schoolchildren are in public schools. And the emphasis on private schools and charter schools and parochial schools is not unimportant.

My gut reaction [on Betsy DeVos] was, oh, my God. We are now back into the education wars.

On the [Betsy] DeVos case, I agree that the gun - her gun position is kind of weird, kind of crazy, but I do think she does know about public schools.

I'm not sure Betsy DeVos has ever spent a day in a public school. And I don't - I'm pretty sure Donald Trump hasn't.

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

I believe there ought to be school choice, so that parents can choose within the public school system.

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

As more government functions are privatized, we find political leaders defunding the public school system, shifting government funds to the private, for-profit school industry.

I'm totally opposed to vouchers. I will fight them tooth and nail.

When you introduce competition into the public school system, most studies show that schools start to do better when they are competing for students.