School Districts Quotes

Many suburban legislators representing affluent school districts use terms such as "sinkhole" when opposing funding for Chicago's children. "We can't keep throwing money," said Governor Thompson in 1988, "into a black hole." The Chicago Tribune notes that, when this phrase is used, people hasten to explain that it is not intended as a slur against the race of many of Chicago's children. "But race," says the Tribune, "never is far from the surface ... ~ Jonathan Kozol

When people think the issue can be solved, it becomes a moral imperative to be part of the solution. We can do a lot more within our school districts to recruit aggressively, select people according to high standards, invest in their training and development, and foster and reward their leadership. Once we invest more in attracting, developing and retaining teachers, potential recruits will begin to see it as a profession worth considering. ~ Wendy Kopp

The School Energy Crisis Relief Act authorizes the Secretary of Energy to issue energy assistance grants to help the poorest school districts across the Nation offset these unexpected and challenging costs. ~ Joe Baca

By providing our school districts with direct access to criminal information records, we can help ensure timely and complete information on prospective school employees. ~ Jon Porter

These days, many well-meaning school districts bring together teachers, coaches, curriculum supervisors, and a cast of thousands to determine what skills your child needs to be successful. Once these "standards" have been established, pacing plans are then drawn up to make sure that each particular skill is taught at the same rate and in the same way to all children. This is, of course, absurd. It gets even worse when one considers the very real fact that nothing of value is learned permanently by a child in a day or two. ~ Rafe Esquith

You've got to have a good public education system so small-business owners, when they locate to an area, are confident their kids are getting the best education possible. I feel strongly about local control in school districts. ~ Jon Tester

The demand that school finances be transferred away from local school districts to the state and/or federal government has been a long-time favorite of the educationist lobbies. ~ M. Stanton Evans

The bad news in our most cosmopolitan and vibrant cities is that many middle-class people can no longer afford to live in 'middle-class' school districts. ~ Sandra Tsing Loh

Like a lot of gym teachers, Coach Babcock loved to torture his students. He felt he had failed as a teacher if his students didn't cry out for mercy. He often bragged that he held the school district's record for causing the most hysterical breakdowns in one afternoon. He used such classic forms of torture as weight training, wrestling, long-distance running, rope climing, wind spirits, chin-ups, and the occasional game of wet dodgeball (the wet ball was superloud when it hit a kid, and it left a huge red welt). But his favorite device of torment was so horrible, so truly evil, that it would drive most children to the brink of madness. It was the square dance.
For six weeks of the school year, his students suffered through the Star Promenade, the Slip the Clutch, and the Ferris Wheel. As Babcock saw it, square dancing was the most embarrassing and uncomfortable form of dancing ever created, and a perfect way to prepare his students for the crushing heartbreak of life. Square dancing was a metaphor for like- you got swung around and just when you thought you were free, you got dragged back into the dance. He really thought he was doing the kids a favor. ~ Michael Buckley

An entourage trailed Hall inside and outside the school district's downtown headquarters; it included a full-time bodyguard whose overtime pay often doubled her $50,000-a-year salary. ~ Anonymous

Character issues such as drug abuse are not exclusive to Detroit Public Schools. My reference to substance abuse, not intended to focus on any particular school district, was simply used to illustrate this position. ~ Kwame Kilpatrick

'No Child Left Behind' requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms. ~ Dianne Feinstein

I grew up in a small town where you know everyone, .. I've been told all my life that I come from too small a town to compete with some of the guys that competed in a higher level growing up. And that kind of drove me through college and drove me in the minor leagues, because I got to face all those big 5- A [school district] guys in the minors. ~ Roy Oswalt

Education Secretary Arne Duncan spurned the opportunity to condemn thousands of Wisconsin public school teachers for lying about being 'sick' and shutting down at least eight school districts across the state to attend capitol protests (many of whom dragged their students on a social justice field trip with them). Instead, Duncan defended teachers for 'doing probably the most important work in society.' Only striking government teachers could win federal praise for not doing their jobs. ~ Michelle Malkin

Scoring well on tests is the sort of happy thing that gets the school district the greenbacks they crave. Understanding and appreciating the material are secondary. ~ Libba Bray

I think that local school districts - not the federal government - should make the decision about how they teach science, biology, economics. I want my kids to be taught about evolution; I want my kids to be taught about other theories. ~ Bobby Jindal

When school districts are measured by how much confidence, worth and hope their graduates have acquired while in school, when the role of education becomes more about nurturing students and a love for learning than standardized test scores, when the term "honor" student stands more for a child's character than than their grades, then schools will again take their role as a place for effective change in America. Until then education will continue to be run by paper chasing, pride driven central office administrators and educational bureaucrats trying to prove their worth to politicians who don't even know our kids. Let our teachers care, let our children thrive. Let our teachers teach. ~ Tom Krause

There are ways we can go do a better job of educating young moms and dads about the vital role they have as the child's first teacher. I think there are ways in which we can partner with local school districts and states to do a better job to provide nutrition options at school. ~ Tom Vilsack

We need to end the government monopoly in education by transferring power from bureaucracies and unions to families. The era of defining public education as allegiance to centralized school districts must end. ~ Jeb Bush

It's now up to the states to figure out how they implement that definition of a well-rounded education, in other words, where they spend federal funds. The new law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, has suggestions like computer science, health, foreign language and geography. So there's no guarantee the arts will now flourish. Arts advocates are ready to help states and school districts with their plans. ~ Elizabeth Blair Lee

It is not the time to put school districts up for auction. Now is the time to galvanize them into action. ~ Andy Hargreaves

School district policies and practices have not kept pace with student and teacher needs. ~ Eli Broad

With Michigan's economic future on the line, we can't afford to have our 500 local school districts marching in different directions. Instead, we need a high standards, mandatory curriculum to get all our students on the road to higher education and a good paying job. ~ Jennifer Granholm

During my time as a state legislator, I've pushed for significant investment in public school districts. In Congress, I would look forward to increasing federal public investment in education through initiatives like Race to the Top. ~ Hakeem Jeffries

All school districts receive funds from the federal government, through the Department of Education, to support anti-drug education efforts. ~ John Walters

Very few charter schools are being created in some of the best school districts in the state. If you're an educational innovator, that isn't where the greatest need is. ~ John Engler

I trained for three years at drama school to be an actor - not a celebrity. ~ Orlando Bloom

She felt the snake between her breasts, felt him there, and loved him there, coiled, the deep tumescent S held rigid, ready to strike. She loved the way the snake looked sewn onto her V-neck letter sweater, his hard diamondback pattern shining in the sun. It was unseasonably hot, almost sixty degrees, for early November in Mystic, Georgia, and she could smell the light musk of her own sweat. She liked the sweat, liked the way it felt, slick as oil, in all the joints of her body, her bones, in the firm sliding muscles, tensed and locked now, ready to spring
to strike
when the band behind her fired up the school song: "Fight On Deadly Rattlers of Old Mystic High."
Harry Crews- A Feast of Snakes ~ Harry Crews

I've been spoiled being in the fashion business. My son will be like, 'Mommy, 20 new pairs of shoes came today. How come?' Because I'm always telling him it's not normal to have 20 pairs of tennis shoes to try on before school. ~ Gwen Stefani

Depending on what your interest in theater is, I always recommend working on plays. It's a great way to be introduced to the field, and also a great way to be seen by agents and representation. I'm also a great advocate for studying acting at a drama school or a college. ~ Chiwetel Ejiofor

It starts with water. The kid who doesn't get to go to school because he's looking for water around his neck of the woods, that kid doesn't learn about HIV and then dies from AIDS. Or cholera or whatever. It all links back. ~ Kenna

I used to skip school to go there when I was growing up in Newark, ... I saw the Flamingos, the Heartbeats, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Jackson. ~ George Clinton

If you count my childhood appearances in a few TV shows and being the son of two well-known actor parents in the U.K., plus three years of drama school, you could say that I've been pretty much surrounded by the business of acting and performing my entire life. ~ Linus Roache

If I could cook I wouldn't have to study my ass off at school and I would have tried to find a man to support me as his lovely wife. ~ Carolina Soto

I am convinced that an immense number of people who have children should not have them, and do not particularly want them, except as "symbols" of family life. What they want are ideal children, not real ones; and as soon as the real ones show no intention of conforming to the ideal in the parent's mind, they are treated as burdens, shipped away to school or otherwise neglected. ~ Sydney J. Harris

Still not going back to school, I see.'
'I'm never going back,' I confess.
'A library's a pretty good alternative, then,' he says. ~ Haruki Murakami

Who besides a degraded rabble would voluntarily present itself to be graded and classified like meat? No wonder school is compulsory. ~ John Taylor Gatto

I went to NYU for acting, for six years. I thought acting was the easy way out or in because I didn't put in enough effort in school, being a crazy kid in college. But, I was good at it, so that was the other side of it. I would love to direct. What I've learned from being on set is more how to deal with actors than even the visual part of it all. ~ Drea De Matteo

I'd learned a little about nuclear war from duck-and-cover air-raid drills at school, but most of what I knew about the Russians came from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show on TV. ~ Todd Strasser

I made a different decision to send my children to the local state school. ~ Johann Lamont

Covet. It was a peculiar word. One I tended to associate with long, dull lectures on Hawthorne and other early American writers from the Puritan age. I had to look it up once, as part of an essay I had been forced to write in school. What I found was: to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others. There were other definitions. More words, different words, although all of them meant the same thing. But it was that first part that had stayed with me: to desire wrongfully. ~ Christine Mangan

Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

It doesn't take a lot to get me motivated. I'm a studio rat. When I was in high school and I would walk into a recording studio, it felt like this magical place, this temple, this womb that I could escape into. ~ Lenny Kravitz

At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages, mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have - I believe the English already use the phrase - "parity of esteem." An even more drastic scheme is not impossible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma - Beelzebub, what a useful word! - by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out 'A Cat Sat On A Mat'. ~ C.S. Lewis

If you have free universal health care and free education supported by public school taxes, then you have more bargaining power with your bosses, but if everything is privatized, and ordinary Americans have to pay for everything through their wages, then they're at the mercy of their employers. If the workers know they'll be ruined if they lost their jobs, they're not going to be uppity. You want to break their spirit. ~ Michael Lind

Maybe if you had focused a little more in school, you could have gotten some scholar..." "No!" Owen shouts, plugging his ears. "How dare you speak that word in my presence?" "What word?" Liam asks with a chuckle. He raises his voice purposefully. "Scholarships? ~ Loretta Lost

I knew Pluto was popular among elementary schoolkids, but I had no idea they would mobilize into a 'Save Pluto' campaign. I now have a drawer full of hate letters from hundreds of elementary schoolchildren (with supportive cover letters from their science teachers) pleading with me to reverse my stance on Pluto. The file includes a photograph of the entire third grade of a school posing on their front steps and holding up a banner proclaiming, 'Dr. Tyson - Pluto is a Planet!' ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

When I was in high school, I was going to be a painter because I had a facility for painting. I could do it, but I didn't have anything to say in that medium. ~ Ellen McLaughlin

On the opening night of the Hazzard County High School production of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Buster was going to play Romeo. His sister, Annie, was to play Juliet. Other than Buster, no one backstage seemed to understand that this was a problem. "Let me ask you something, Buster," said Mr. Delano, the high school drama teacher. "Have you heard of the phrase the show must go on?" Buster nodded. "Well," Mr. Delano continued, "this is the kind of moment for which that phrase was coined. ~ Kevin Wilson

When I was in high school at Northeast Catholic in Philadelphia in the late '30s, I found that drawing caricatures of the teachers and satirizing the events in the school, then having them published in our school magazine, got me some notoriety. ~ Bil Keane

I was hoping to attend the School of Visual Arts and had a portfolio built up. ~ Kevin Dillon

I've always wanted to wake up one day in a world where I liked the right people, and they lied me in return. I worry it'll never happen. ~ Kenneth Logan

I started out doing improvised voices when I started working in a program where I read for kids in schools. I had some kids and they asked me if I would mind doing it. I was very happy to do it. That's where I got my training before I went to the public. I did that for several years. It was actually the best vocal training I could have had. ~ Steven Blum

At three years of age, the child has already laid the foundations of the human personality and needs the special help of education in the school. The acquisitions he has made are such that we can say the child who enters school at three is an old man. ~ Maria Montessori

The last thing I need is more high school drama but a support group that doesn't dig into my personal business sounds good. They can keep the drama for themselves. ~ Nikki Godwin

God, sit by the freak, why don't you."
"Excuse me, do you have Tourette's?"
"What?"
"Tourette's Syndrome. It's a neurological disorder that causes people to say things they don't really mean. Do you have it?"
"No."
"Oh, so you were being purposely rude."
"I wasn't calling YOU a freak."
"I'm aware of that. That's why I'm only going to break ONE of your fingers after school, instead of all of them. ~ Meg Cabot

My mother was a very big inspiration. She loved fashion. I loved art in school, and I was very good at drawing. I could sit at the table forever and just dream up collections and draw. ~ Nina Garcia

There is a cost that comes with moving schools so often and it's not what I want for my son when he gets older, but it did make me very adaptable. I became aware of what was missing from the social structure of each class that I arrived in, and made sure to fill that gap. ~ Jennifer Ehle

Being on the road and doing events is like getting kids ready for school for most families. ~ David Wolfe