School District Quotes & Sayings

The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expense of it," [John] Adams wrote. "There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves." Jefferson's fear was that without such a system of public education, the country would end up being ruled by a privileged elite that would recycle itself through a network of private institutions that entrenched their advantage. — Fareed Zakaria

It isnt easy to put all of the ingredients together and one of the key things is this is the first time theres been a real, significant governmental body participation. In our case, its Collin County and the City of Frisco, the Frisco Economic Development group and the Frisco Independent School District. Those bodies, and Hunt Sports Group, obviously, put money into the project, and that has helped make it work. — Lamar Hunt

In school, they tell us the Capitol was built in a place once called the Rockies. District 12 was in a region known as Appalachia. Even hundreds of years ago, they mined coal here. Which is why our miners have to dig so deep. — Suzanne Collins

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

Where you can starve to death in safety," I mutter. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you. When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food — Suzanne Collins

For Jefferson, there was one step crucial to creating a genuine natural aristocracy. The poor and rich had to have equal access to a good education. That's why, despite being soemthing of a liberatarian, he repeatedly proposed that the state pay for universal primary education as well as fund education at later stages. He was met with opposition from many quarters, mostly those wary of big government or highter taxes. Yet interestingly, one of this most ardent supporters was an old friend and political opponent, the conservative John Adams. "The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it," Adams wrote. "There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people. — Fareed Zakaria

We so resented that asshole up there talking talking talking taking up the entire assembly expecting us to believe there isn't a special creation of God, or of man, to which we didn't belong, here in the shabby south end of Hammond in the worst damn public school in the district, we didn't belong and never would.
And what the hell?
Such truths, FOXFIRE made softer. — Joyce Carol Oates

My mom is a translator for the school district in Delaware. She'd hear these different stories from working with families there. Those stories stuck with me. — Cristina Henriquez

I think evolution should be taught as an accepted principle. I say that also as the daughter of a school teacher, a science teacher, who has instilled in me a respect for science. I think it should be taught in our schools. I won't ever deny that I see the hand of God in this beautiful creation that is earth. But - that is not a part of state policy or a local curriculum in a school district. Science should be taught in science class. — Sarah Palin

We developed at the local school district level probably the best public school system in the world. Or it was until the Federal government added Federal interference to Federal financial aid and eroded educational quality in the process. — Ronald Reagan

Dr. Margaret Oda, a true trailblazer in education, served as Honolulu school district superintendent and was the driving force behind the middle-school concept and the first chairwoman of the Japanese American National Museum. — Colleen Hanabusa

I remember watching an episode of The West Wing about education in America, which the majority of people rightfully believe is the key to opportunity. In it, the fictional president debates whether he should push school vouchers (giving public money to schoolchildren so that they escape failing public schools) or instead focus exclusively on fixing those same failing schools. That debate is important, of course - for a long time, much of my failing school district qualified for vouchers - but it was striking that in an entire discussion about why poor kids struggled in school, the emphasis rested entirely on public institutions. As a teacher at my old high school told me recently, "They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that many of them are raised by wolves. — J.D. Vance

As a former District Attorney and Attorney General, I know the urgency of providing safe homes, schools and neighborhoods for all. This remarkable tour-de-force is a powerful study of one promising solution: a data-rich, eminently readable demonstration of why we should treat gun violence as an American epidemic. — Scott Harshbarger

Before parents accept the wisdeom of a school board to cut school librarians, they should ask: Will my child graduate with a 21st-century resume, or a 19th-century transcript? ... As the information landscape becomes ever more complex, why does a school district want to abandon its professional guides to it? — Mark Moran

When kids start school, families often have little choice over where they can go. Sometimes, children are forced into a failing school simply because their parents live in a certain district, and that school is the only option. — Kevin McCarthy

What would happen if some invisible gas leak in the school cafeteria caused diminished brain activity in students? Can we safely assume district officials would evacuate the school until further notice? That parents would be up in arms? That media and lawyers would descend in droves to collect statements from the innocent victims? Can we assume that the community would not gather together en masse on Friday nights to eat hot dogs and watch the gas leak? — Steve Almond

Helping teacher leaders come to understand their gifts is the first step in developing a specialty. Some leaders are great coaches and should focus on instructional leadership in a district or network where that is valued and supported. Great conceptual thinkers are good in startup mode but the daily grind of leading a school doesn't suit them. Other leaders thrive on the turnaround challenge. The dynamic blended future of education will allow more role specialization. — Tom Vander Ark

The question taxpayers keep asking is 'why should we pay for services for those who have broken the law to get here?' They should not, nor should they be forced to be the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) and School District of the world. This is evidenced in every poll I have seen indicating that every ethnic group is opposed to illegal immigration and supports enforcement of the law. — Michael D. Antonovich

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

Unless we have the wealth to pay for private education, we are compelled by law to go to public school - and to the public school in our district. Thus the state, by requiring attendance but refusing to require equity, effectively requires inequality. Compulsory inequity, perpetuated by state law, too frequently condemns our children to unequal lives. — Jonathan Kozol

In Finland, within very broad government guidelines, teachers create their own curricula together across schools in every community and district. They don't confine collaboration to their own individual schools and to just implementing other people's ideas. — Andy Hargreaves

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

The correct answer is the University Titans, the West Valley Eagles, the Central Valley Bears, the East Valley Knights, the Riverside Rams. The fact you don't even know an answer to the question like [naming all the Spokane Valley High School Mascots] means you don't even know the district. How can you represent the district if you don't even know it? — Matt Shea

Arlen Specter is the man who voted in favor of Bill Clinton during impeachment, voted against Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, voted against school choice for the District of Columbia, endorses an absolutist interpretation of abortion rights. He is bright and he is tough and he belongs elsewhere. — William F. Buckley Jr.

We demand that segregation be ended in every school district in the year 1963! We demand that we have effective civil rights legislation - no compromise, no filibuster - and that include public accommodations, decent housing, integrated education, FEPC and the right to vote. — Bayard Rustin

When school district officials literally laughed at the notion that the Me Generation - this was the label for my generation - would jump at the chance to teach in urban and rural communities, their concerns, too, went unheard. My very greatest asset was that I simply did not understand what was impossible. — Wendy Kopp

But in school I remember hearing that for the second Quarter Quell, the Capitol demanded that twice the number of tributes be provided for the arena. The teachers didn't go into much more detail, which is surprising, because that was the year District 12's very own Haymitch Abernathy won the crown. — Suzanne Collins

Especially in local elections, because hardly anybody pays attention to those - but it's really important who's mayor and who's on the city council, county commissioners, sheriffs, district attorney, and of course the school board. — Jello Biafra

There were moments of racial unity. Lawrence Goodwyn found in east Texas an unusual coalition of black and white public officials: it had begun during Reconstruction and continued into the Populist period. The state government was in the control of white Democrats, but in Grimes County, blacks won local offices and sent legislators to the state capital. The district clerk was a black man; there were black deputy sheriffs and a black school principal. A night-riding White Man's Union used intimidation and murder to split the coalition, but Goodwyn points to "the long years of interracial cooperation in Grimes County" and wonders about missed opportunities. — Howard Zinn

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

Oh, I have this feud going with the L.A. Unified School District, because I keep getting these phone calls saying my daughter keeps missing classes, I mean, at all hours of the night, I had like, two calls this morning and I keep calling saying I haven't got a daughter! — Chris Colfer

What matters most is for the school, the district, and the state to be able to say that more students have reached "proficiency." This sort of fraud ignores the students' interests while promoting the interests of adults who take credit for nonexistent improvements. — Diane Ravitch

Creating a high-functioning education system requires all the strategies involved in building high-functioning organisations anywhere. It requires a deliberate and aggressive strategy to ensure extraordinary talent at every level of the system, from the superintendentcy to district offices to principalships to classrooms. It requires building systems for accountability; offering parents the ability to choose their public schools is the ultimate form of this. It requires building a strong culture at the system and school levels based on high expectations for student achievement. — Wendy Kopp

Police: NY bus driver drove drunk with 35 students on board CORTLANDT, N.Y. (AP) - Police say a school bus driver was driving drunk with 35 students on board when she sideswiped a utility pole in suburban New York. It happened Monday as 56-year-old Mary Coletti was taking students to Walter Panas High School in Cortdandt. Authorities say she sideswiped the pole around 7 a.m. They say her blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit of .08 percent. A few students suffered minor injuries. Lakeland School District Superintendent George Stone tells The Journal News Coletti's bus driver's license has been revoked. Coletti was arraigned Monday and sent to jail on $1,000 bail. She's due back in court May 18. It's unclear if she has an attorney. Posted: — Anonymous

I have been told by the third grade teacher that my daughter Poppet is reading at middle school level. Yet if I leave Poppet a note in block letters telling her to feed the dogs I will come home to find the dogs have been ... given a swim in the above-ground pool, dressed in tutus, provided with hair weaves. What I will not find is that the dogs have been fed. 'I thought you wanted me to free the dogs,' says Poppet whose school district is not spending quite what D.C.'s is, thanks to voter rejection of the last school bond referendum. — P. J. O'Rourke

The thing that really struck me when I went to junior high was class. I grew up on a pretty poor street, but the school district I was in included some fine neighborhoods - so I got to know a couple of the kids from those places and went to their houses and experienced such culture shock. — Lynda Barry

When I was in high school, I would drive into Seattle to see bands and sip coffee late into the night, and I always ended up taking the long way home. I'd be a little anxious about stalling my Datsun on one of the hills around the city, so when I saw Denny Way, I always turned onto it, even though it led away from my home to Seattle's Capitol Hill district. From there I navigated winding hills and eventually ended up at home. A quick look at a map would have revealed the freeway that heads straight to my house, but since my circuitous route was familiar, I stuck to it. I should have known better, but I was just a kid. What excuse does the richest nation on earth have for driving around in the dark like an adolescent? Just because our familiar arguments over how best to help families and the economy lead us along well-trod paths doesn't make them the best ones we could be taking. — Heather Boushey

In many ways, she realized that each of the children was like her precious hope chest at home. In the beginning, they were empty vessels, waiting to be filled with goodness and godliness. The values that the children learned from school, church, and family helped them become positive influences on the entire district. — Sarah Price

I'd propose that each central-city child should have an entitlement from the state to attend any school in the metropolitan area outside his own district - with per pupil funds going with him. — James S. Coleman

For the 95 per cent whose only means of schooling is the district or the city school, we must provide what we are not now providing, an education that will better fit them for the struggle of life. — Arthur Capper

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

extra," an incentive to help kids get their work done.
How my thinking has evolved over the years! About eight years ago, the director of kindergarten for my school district approached me to develop a new approach to learning centers that would better meet the needs of all students. We decided to try literacy work stations, — Debbie Diller

Some of the school districts in my congressional district are looking at resource officers and how they secure that environment. — Marsha Blackburn

In the Westerville, Ohio, school district, for example, a union contract provision stipulated that a coin flip would be used to determine seniority if two teachers were hired on the same day. One might be a great teacher, the other awful; it makes no difference. That is how much importance unions place on teacher quality. — Glenn Beck

Shogo looked at Shuya and Noriko. "The winner's forced to transfer to another school where he or she is ordered not to mention the game and is instructed instead to lead a normal life. That's all."
Shuya felt his chest well up inside and his face froze. He stared at Shogo and realized that Noriko was holding her breath.
Shogo said, "I was a student in Third Year Class C, Second District, Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture." He added, "I survived the Program held in Hyogo Prefecture last year. — Koushun Takami

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district; all studied and appreciated as they merit; are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty. — Benjamin Franklin

I was born in 1943 and raised in the Bronx, in a high rise apartment complex known as Parkchester, the only child of Max, an accountant who worked in the garment district in Manhattan, and Rose, an elementary school teacher. — Robert Lefkowitz