Education Priorities Quotes

I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.

A lot of students who are 18 or 19 go to college partly for the social aspect of it. At the community college, people's goals are a little different. Their needs are more immediate.

We should not have 8th grade graduations. Instead we should tell the students, “You have a long way to go. Get your butt down and study.”

Our obsessive focus on college schooling has blinded us to basic truths. College is a place, not a magic formula. It matters what subjects students study, and subsidies should focus on the subjects that matter the most - not to the students, but to everyone else.

In the United States we have concentrated tremendous sums of money on the educational plant, seemingly with the idea that the right number of buildings will turn out the right number of graduates. Yet the teachers who actually instruct the future citizens of our country are more often than not miserably paid. If in the future we find ourselves with a lot of fourth-rate citizens, we have only ourselves to blame.

I mean you're given all these lessons for the unimportant things--piano-playing, typing. You're given years and years of lessons in how to balance equations, which Lord knows you will never have to do in normal life. But how about parenthood? Or marriage, either, come to think of it. Before you can drive a car you need a state-approved course of instruction, but driving a car is nothing, nothing, compared to living day in and day out with a husband and raising up a new human being.

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.

Coming from a large immigrant family, my parents didn't encourage a lot of 'play' when I was growing up. It was hard to get my Dad to even sit down to watch television with us (he'd watch it standing up, always ready to go do something more productive). Downtime was discouraged, as was any college degree that wasn't law, medicine or business.

My daughter did this production of 'Romeo & Juliet' when she was younger, and this agent said she should work, and I said, 'You know what? I'd rather just have her go to school.'

The resources of a university, of a college, should not be wasted in merely academic pursuits.

The unions no longer control the education agenda of the Democratic Party.

And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'

In our town meetings, and in our school district meetings, wealthy and substantial men oppose the grant of $15 to a school library, and of $30 for both library and apparatus; while at West Point they spend $50 in a single lesson at target firing, and the government keeps a hundred horses, and grooms and blacksmiths to take care of them, as an indispensable part of the apparatus of the academy. The pupils of our Normal schools, who are preparing to become teachers, must maintain themselves; the cadets at the academy receive $28 a month, during their entire term, as a compensation for being educated at the public expense.

I think we spend too much on K-12 education a.k.a. teachers' salaries. It's the only industry where you never see any productivity increases.

My obligation is to focus on the priorities of classroom instruction, parental involvement and student safety, targeting student performance and eliminating unnecessary administrative costs.

People in the United States are highly transient. Families move from state to state. So why do we take a full year - in some states, two years - to study state history? It takes time away from more important topics.

Australia must prioritise education spending. It is not a question of whether or not we have the money, it is a question of how we choose to spend it.

I was very involved with school by the time I was 15 and wasn't working much as a model.

I started modelling at the age of 16 and always aspired to be an actor. But my family only agreed to it on the condition that I would not let my studies suffer because of my work.

Congress and the public don't seem to have noticed that, while largely ignoring our own students, we are putting our money and our best talent into training our economic competitors.

Everyone knows these stories about a wild and crazy guy called Bonzo, but at home he was just like any other father; always hollering at me for not doing my homework.

Too many states spend more money on prisons than on higher education.

We don't teach kids how to think anymore. We're getting rid of the classics - high school is all about self-esteem.

I say that a university is a house of knowledge, not for showing off Dolce & Gabbana bags. Students should go to university in uniform.

How can you dare teach a man to read until you've taught him everything else first?