Education reform

“ The reform is easily seen to be a many-sided one. It is educational—our teachers should come to know that the book is only one, and not the chief one, of the many sources of knowledge open to the child; it is physiological—we should all know the eye better than we do, its normal use and its limitations; the reform is architectural—our architects and boards of education should realize that the seating and the lighting of school houses should receive most careful consideration ”

“ They ought to meet the inspiring young people who overcame so much, and worked so hard, to earn their diplomas – in a school that believed in their promise and gave them the opportunity to succeed. We need to give every child in America that chance. That’s why education reform matters. ”

“ After many years of debate, the American people are counting on us to deliver on our promise of reform for the public schools.
Both the House and the Senate have passed good bills that hold schools accountable and expect results. The hardest work is behind us. We have a chance now to pass education reform based on good principles. ”

“ The situation, therefore, calls at once for examination reform, but it calls also for far more: we must harmonize under a sufficiently large ideal the various phases of developmental education. The elementary school, the secondary school, the college, have not yet been viewed and organized as essentially a single educational institution. Pending and in aid of their reorganization on this basis, I urge the colleges to emphasize the vital, not the mechanical, side of preparatory teaching; to establish fixedly no machinery that may impede the creation of a system subtly adapted to the individual. ”

“ The implementation of reform measures in education will have deep implications and consequences for many sectors of our society. We con­template legislative measures to provide the authority and the money to carry out such reforms. We will, therefore, submit to Congress a major educational development program. ”

“ I want to push education reform, as I said, not just to spend more money but to really improve learning. Some things work, and some things don't. We ought to be subsidizing the things that work and discouraging the things that don't. ”

“ The Elementary Education Act, while it thus indicated the nature of the reform required, also furnished the most urgent reason for the immediate adoption of that reform at the universities. If primary education ought to be the care of the State, secondary education is not less its duty. ”

“ The reform of this system is not a matter of sentiment. These babies are the future scholars of our improved schools that the Education Act is intended to produce, and the future citizens by whom our Imperial position is to be maintained. ”

“ The most powerful of all moral influences in the future will undoubtedly be the reform of education, not merely by the improvement of its methods in various departments, but also, and with much more importance, in the general spirit with which its objects will be conceived. But in order to affirm that this reform will occur, we must first demonstrate that the grounds upon which it is anticipated are adequate. We must, in the terms of the formula above proposed, be satisfied that they are in harmony with the fundamentals of human character. ”

“ Until some universal faith has been accepted on its own merits, all attempts made by Government to reform education must necessarily be reactionary; since they will always be based on some one of the retrogressive creeds which it is our object to supersede altogether.
It is with adults, then, that we must deal. We must endeavour to disseminate systematic convictions among them, and thus open the door to a real reform of education for the next generation. ”

“ This reform has made possible a more efficient coordination of school finances and the full utilization of the services of teachers, and has offered increased opportunity for elementary education throughout the country. ”

“ At a moment when the country is agitated with questions of educational reform, I thought it might be useful to draw attention to what I believe to be a fact, namely, that the foundations of all existing education systems are absolutely [Pg vi] false in principle; and that teaching itself, as opposed to natural development and self-culture, is the greatest obstacle to human progress that social evolution has ever had to encounter. ”

“ And Congress should pass that bill right now.
But money alone won’t solve our education problems. We also need reform. We need to make sure that every classroom is a place of high expectations and high performance. ”

“ Let those who are giving their best thought to the problems of education first determine the sort of work that can and ought to be done in the schools, then let them submit their plans to the people through press and platform, and then reform the normal schools to suit the desires and demands of the people thus instructed. ”

“ We will step up training for all teachers, especially rural teachers, and encourage graduates from teachers colleges and other colleges and universities to teach at community and village schools.
Fourth, we will advance well-rounded education. Education of all types and at all levels must focus on promoting all-round development of students. Reform of curriculums, textbooks, teaching methods and examination and evaluation systems should be accelerated to relieve primary and secondary school students of their excessive study load so that they will have more time to think, practice and create. ”

“ For less than one percent of what we spend on education each year, Race to the Top has led states across the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning. These standards were developed, not by Washington, but by Republican and Democratic governors throughout the country. And since then, we have seen what’s possible when reform isn’t just a top-down mandate, but the work of local teachers and principals ”

“ Though the abolition of serfdom, the reform of the civil service, and the beginnings of local and representative government were important gains, nothing was of secondary importance to the complete reorganization of education which now took place. The education of the people was turned to in earnest for the regeneration of the national spirit, and education was, in a decade, made the great constructive agent of the State. ”

“ A real desire for improvement exists. Educational extension and reform must inevitably play an important part in the political progress of the country. We have already made clear our conviction that political capacity can come only through the exercise of political responsibility; and that mere education without opportunities must result in serious mischief. ”

“ The bipartisan reform of No Child Left Behind was an important start, and together, we’ve increased early childhood education, lifted high school graduation rates to new highs, and boosted graduates in fields like engineering. ”

“ This is the work which science, art, religion, not less than political revolutions and social reforms, have gradually been accomplishing and perfecting in the last three hundred years. This new spiritual orientation has to a certain extent influenced teaching; and though without a general programme of substantial reforms, the ideal of education has been transformed along idealistic lines. ”

“ Through this injustice, the school has been burdened with faults that are not its own, and teachers, genuine educators, have been confused with the pedantic drill-masters that are the negation of intelligent education and of inspired ethical discipline. In order to see whether education really limits the free activity of the pupil, we must not consider abstractly any school, which may not be after all a school. We must examine an institution at the moment and in the act which 60 realises its significance—when the instructor teaches and the pupils are learning. ”

“ The old endowed schools were now no longer sufficient in numbers, and the result was the founding of many private and joint-stock-company secondary schools to minister to the new educational needs. The Second Reform Bill of 1867 enfranchised a very much greater number of citizens, and the increasing wealth and the increasing demands for educational advantages led to an insistence for a further extension along secondary and higher lines. ”

“ I have advanced a comprehensive plan to strengthen and renew our Nation's schools and education agenda for the 21st century—from reducing class size to improving teacher quality, from modernizing and rebuilding thousands of schools to finishing the job of connecting every library and classroom to the Internet, from putting an end to social promotion to expanding after-school and summer school programs. ”

“ The way to improve education for all our children is to increase standards, accountability, and choice within the public schools. I urge the Congress to send me legislation I have proposed to reduce class size, modernize our schools, end social promotions, raise academic standards for all students, and hold school systems, schools, and staff accountable for results. ”

“ Consider our so-called educational "problems": "How may we keep pupils in the high school?" Feed and clothe them. "Shall we teach Latin, Greek, and mathematics to the 'masses'?" If they are worth teaching to anybody, the masses need them most. "Who shall go to college?" Everybody. "When shall culture training give place to technical education for work?" Never.
These questions are not "problems." They are simply "excuses" for spending less time and money on the next generation. Given ten millions of dollars a year, what can we best do with the education of a million children? ”

“ We must modernize school buildings and expand school choice and accountability in public education. And we must encourage lifelong learning for all our citizens, from expanding Head Start programs to helping adults improve their education and skills. ”

“ Instead of casting about for means of securing a{142} State monopoly of the ruinous type of education supplied by our schools and colleges, it would be more conducive to the salvation of the country if the whole energies of the nation were directed towards revolutionizing the system of instruction itself.
If schoolmasters can accomplish nothing better than the manufacture of set types of humanity, the progress of mankind would be promoted more rapidly without their assistance. ”

“ It would be a wicked deed to write anything that might seem to imply that our Schools were not in need of very extensive reforms, or that their efficiency is not a necessary preliminary condition to general public efficiency, but, indeed, the Schools are only one factor in a great interplay of causes, and the remedy is a much ampler problem than any Education Act will cure. ”

“ But this ideal will remain a myth unless the system of education is entirely changed. It is the duty of the Government to organize schools and colleges, for boys and girls, both rich and poor, and of all ages. ”

“ We need to encourage this kind of change all across America. We need to reward the reforms that are driven not by Washington, but by principals and teachers and parents. That’s how we’ll make progress in education – not from the top down, but from the bottom up. ”

“ But I think strengthening education is a national priority. So I urge Congress to help reduce class size, to modernize our school buildings, to improve teacher quality, to make accountability for results—ending social promotion, reasonable discipline codes, all these other things that I have advocated—make these things the law of the land. If we do this, we can transform our public schools; we can lift our children up; we can give them the education they need to make the most of their lives in an exciting new century. ”

“ The anonymous author argued that the Government should confine its operations to promoting elementary education, leaving all higher education to be organized on the voluntary principle and to be paid for by those who value it. ”

“ We must also be content to see the high privilege of general education seized by boys and girls whose easy lives make them careless of its value and inconstant in its pursuit. These conditions schools themselves cannot change. But by public provision and by scholarships the opportunity for prolonged education may be kept open to the able and ambitious. The spirit of teaching and school administration may help to prevent the formation of social caste. ”

“ The establishment of the free public high school and the state university represent the crowning achievements of those who struggled to found a state-supported educational system fitted to the needs of great democratic States. Probably no other influences have done more to unify the American People, reconcile diverse points of view, eliminate state jealousies, set ideals for the people, and train leaders for the service of the States and of the Nation than the academies, high schools, and colleges scattered over the land. ”

“ The public schools, designed for the general and gratuitous dissemination of knowledge among all classes, have not only increased in number but have generally outstripped those of the higher order, by seizing at once upon all the improvements which the experience of teachers in other parts of the country, and the world, has from time to time suggested. Mere innovations rather hinder than advance the progress of education. ”

“ Others are new plans of instruction or government, generally founded on some good principle carried to an extreme, or made to grow into exaggerated and disproportionate importance. Examples almost innumerable of these things might be particularized, if it were proper, and it would be found, upon examination, that the amount of ingenuity and labor wasted upon such attempts would have been sufficient, if properly expended, to have elevated very considerably the standard of education, and to have placed existing institutions in a far more prosperous and thriving state than they now exhibit. ”