Milton Friedman Quotes

I think it's a scandal what has been happening in the school system so far as lower income classes. The dropout rates, the illiteracy rate, you know literacy in the United States was a lot higher in 1890 than it is now.

We hear talk now about reforming public education. There are billions of dollars at stake for such a reform. But I have not heard Arne Duncan, who is the U.S. Education Secretary, mention once the civic illiteracy in the country.

If the government is going to mandate levels and punish schools for failing, they should send that money to the school system.

In the US, the problem is primary and secondary education. We've had such an increase in inequality because a quarter of American kids don't finish high school!

America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don't finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don't finish high school.

Educational progress is a national concern; education is a private one.

American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?

The interesting thing now for No Child Left Behind is that there are very few advocates for it; there is no constituency for it. Parents don't like it, administrators don't like it, and kids don't like it, but politicians and bureaucrats in Washington love it--which should be the first indication to you that it is a troubled program.

High school dropout rates nationally - Not enough is being done on this issue.

When I look at 55 percent of our black men dropping out of school, how bad off are we going to be when we need some lawyers?

I think it is shocking that 15- and 16-year-olds leave school unable to add up and with the reading ability of a four-year-old.

It's an insane tragedy that 700,000 people get a diploma each year and can't read the damned diploma.

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.

Private sector cannot substitute the role of the government in primary education.

Comprehensive schools, as too few understand, have never been designed to improve education.

Government school education across India is in shambles.

I support charters, but the right kind of charters. I support charters that support kids who have the highest needs. A charter should be targeting students who are in serious trouble. It should serve students who didn't succeed in public schools when it can help them. Or, at least, charters should agree to accept similar proportions of the kids with the highest needs.

Liberals will not let you improve the schools or the educational opportunities for poor people, because they want to maintain their teachers union status quo.

There is no system in the world or any school in the country that is better than its teachers. Teachers are the lifeblood of the success of schools.

There is nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school.

Now, the education of our children is of national concern, and if they are not educated properly, it is a national calamity.

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Illiteracy is a huge problem in America. One in three adults in our country is illiterate.

Public education is a great instrument of social change. Through it, if we so desire, we can make our country more nearly a democracy without classes. To do so will require the efforts of us all-teachers, administrators, taxpayers and statesmen. Education is a social process, perhaps the most important process in determining the future of our country; it should command a far larger portion of our national income than it does today.

One of the troubles of the day, observes Mr. C.N. Peac, is that once we came upon the little red schoolhouse, whereas now we come upon the little-read school boy.