Thomas Sowell Quotes

I want my kids to graduate from high school. But that's not enough. I also want them to go to college. Why? Because rich people's kids go to college. And if that's good enough for them, it's good enough for my kids. Because you know what? College graduates don't tend to go to jail as frequently as nongraduates.

Most poor people in America are white. The family breakdown issue is an issue that crosses all sorts of racial lines. High school dropout issues. But because of the flow of events which involve the racial component, we've sometimes confused racial issues with other issues which are trans-racial.

As far back as 1969, black males who came from homes where there were newspapers, magazines, and library cards had the same incomes as whites from similar homes and with the same number of years of schooling. In the 1970s, black husband-and-wife families outside the South earned as much as white husband-and-wife families outside the South. By 1981, for the country as a whole, black husband-and-wife families where both were college educated and both working earned slightly more than white families of the same description.

I grew up in a household that was a labor household. My dad was a Teamster and a milk truck driver. My mother was a secretary. Neither of them got through high school. But they worked hard and they gave me very, very important opportunities to go to school, get a good education.

Over time, my students have gotten richer and more educated.

A generation ago, it wasn't necessary to have a college degree to get into the middle class …

The people with high school degrees and the people who have college degrees are living in two different Americas.

College education is the engine of social mobility in this country.

I was the first in my family to go to college, and so, growing up, I thought that dressing well opened doors.

People's fates in life are decided largely by their schools.

The job of the school is to teach so well that family background is no longer an issue.

Education remains one of the black community's most enduring values. It is sustained by the belief that freedom and education go hand in hand, that learning and training are essential to economic quality and independence.

If you grew up in a lower-income community, or less well-off, the belief is that the way to change that circumstance is through education.

The data is going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category.

My wife and I have been passionate about education being a gateway for upward mobility and equality.

The road to being somebody in this society starts with education.

One of the most consistent findings about low performing schools and students is that "home variables" (parental income and education, etc.) are more predictive than "school variables." But, having said that, we as a society can have much more effect on the school variables than on the home variables, so it's important and valuable to focus on the question of which interventions in schools are most effective and which are least effective.

Today, 8 million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished 5 years of school. Nearly 20 million have not finished 8 years of school. Nearly 54 million - more than one-quarter of all America - have not even finished high school.

The life prospects of an American are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in any of the other advanced industrial countries.

Poverty can't be an excuse for bad teaching, but teaching can't be the only thing we do to combat poverty.

The notion about education has changed and that now it’s sort of much more aligned with, “Well, schools can’t combat poverty. We can’t possibly expect schools to do the work to overcome poverty.” I think that notion which has changed over the last few decades is part, not all, but part of what is maybe leading to people feeling less of a sense of possibility.

If you're planning on dropping out of high school, prepare yourself for the future by repeating aloud each day: 'I'm looking forward to low-paying jobs for the rest of my life.'

Literacy could be the ladder out of poverty

My parents grew up in poor families where little English was spoken, they both went to college and became teachers. They believed that anything was possible with hard work, and they particularly stressed the importance of education. They instilled that same belief in my sister and me.

I have become convinced that we blacks spend too much time on the playing field and too little time in libraries.