Academic Achievement Gap Quotes

The state of our educational system is a disgrace to our country. We have an elementary and secondary school system in which close to half of the youngsters never graduate properly. It's a disgrace that there is more illiteracy today than there was 100 years ago.

Students who spend their lives in segregated schools can look forward to a life on the margins.

Unless we improve our ability to provide a quality education for underprivileged kids, we're not going to really overcome in a massive way our past.

What began to weigh heavily upon me was that at the same time I was struggling to get my scholars and their families to believe in themselves, I was part of an educational system that despite its best intentions, only reinforced their failures.

I am particularly surprised that certain outlets look at pass rates irrespective of student population. As if inner city high school kids are to fare as well as college students.

The large majority of the Negroes who have put on the finishing touches of our best colleges are all but worthless in the development of their people.

I know that the DeVos agenda has absolutely devastated our public school system in Michigan.

Far too many bright, motivated kids are being badly served by their educational experiences - ones at elite, wealthy schools as well as underfunded ones.

Today, over half of China's undergraduate degrees are in math, science technology and engineering, yet only 16 percent of America's undergraduates pursue these schools.

One of the things that even wealthy children need is an education, and I think the problems I saw really have nothing to do with economics. So I was unhappy with what my own children were getting even in the better schools, and then I was seeing so many children here recruited for failure.

The list of costly services that supplement some children's public education is growing longer and now includes consultants, tutors, and test prep. That's in addition to the homework help some stay-at-home parents can afford to provide.

Education is a bipartisan issue that concern all communities of color and should be first, last and always about the student learning.

I came from a good family and a nice area, but I went to a rough state school.

One of the most subtle but aggressive ways racism exists is through our education system.

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.

It is not fair to think that when students transit through a K-12 system that is not preparing them for beyond, that somehow we are going to wave a magic wand and things are going to be perfect for them at the higher-ed level.

The American high school graduate is two years behind his English, French or German counterpart; in Alabama, God knows how far behind.

This crusade is much more important than the anti- lynching movement, because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom.

And I think that we in America need to understand that many schools need improvement, and particularly with respect to how they're serving minority children.

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.

For students today, only 10 percent of children from working-class families graduate from college by the age of 24 as compared to 58 percent of upper-middle-class and wealthy families.

Most people don't realize that it's not just minorities who don't do well in science and engineering - quite frankly, you're talking about Americans.

The five different areas in which boys are in crisis - education; jobs; emotional health; physical health; and fatherlessness - are handled by different portions of the government.

Of course, the American education system is very inefficient in many ways compared to other countries in Europe or Japan, but it works in such a way that at least the few people who are going onto unusual careers and science can manage to get into that, even though they go through an earlier stage that doesn't give them much.

I think that one of the greatest challenges we have today is around education. One of the things that is dividing us more and more is whether you have good prospects or you don't. Do you live a neighborhood where the schools are good? If you don't, your kids may not read until the time they're in third grade. Do you at least have access to a community college that will give you job training skills so that if you don't go for four years you will at least come out with a decent job and a decent wage. Too many people don't have that opportunity.