Board Of Education Quotes

I was one of the first 18-year-olds in the United States elected to public office right after 18-year-olds got the right to vote back in the early '70s. I ran for the Board of Education.

I'd walk into the school, smell that institutional smell of the tomato soup, peanut butter, disinfectant, and boys room. Pass the lunchroom, see the familiar lunchroom lady with the white dress and net on her hair. At the end of 50 years of distinguished service the Board of Education gives her a bronze net - with her name on it. It stems from the Board of Education rule to keep her hair out of the food.

Parents teach in the toughest school in the world - The School for Making People. You are the board of education, the principal, the classroom teacher, and the janitor.

The 1947 Court (Everson v. Board of Education) for the first time had used only Jefferson's metaphor - completely divorced from its context and intent.

Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.

This is how it is today: The teachers are afraid of the principals. The principals are afraid of the superintendents. The superintendents are afraid of the board of education. The board is afraid of the parents. The parents are afraid of the children. The children are afraid of nothing!

I believe, the NAACP began to try to organize parents of Negro children to file petitions with the boards of education regarding the integration of the school system. You had some very severe economic reprisals against people in Mississippi and in South Carolina. So, in order to try to help to meet some of the physical needs and the economic needs of people in Clarendon County [SC] who had been displaced from the land, and otherwise, and in certain sections of Mississippi, we organized in New York City something called "In Friendship".

He said he "admired our courage" but didn't want to see us do anything to "damage our promising futures." He felt "proud as an American" that we had "exercised our right to peaceful free expression." But if we did it again, he didn't "know what action the state board of education might take against individual students." Translation: You've had your fun. Now sit down, shut up, and take the freakin' test. Or else.

Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

In The Field Of Public Education, The Doctrine Of 'Separate But Equal' Has No Place

None of us were prepared to hear what Justice Scalia said, because in essence what he was saying is let`s go back to pre-Board of Education - Brown versus Board of Education, 1950s America where blacks are doing all right going to black schools or schools where blacks go. He said go to less advanced schools where they do all right. We`re going back to separate but equal.

During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially. During that time the gap between black and white achievement narrowed.

Many Americans who supported the initial thrust of civil rights, as represented by the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, later felt betrayed as the original concept of equal individual opportunity evolved toward the concept of equal group results.

Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.

My association with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is sort of predated by an effort that we were a part of here in New York City regarding the reaction to this 1954 Supreme Court [Brown v Board of Education] decision.

Most of our competitor nations around the world have a national education system and America is the only major nation in the world that operates off of local school boards. They receive very little direction from state boards of education or from the nation. So local school boards direct basically what happens and too often they're not willing to track or to do the supervision of the education system that will make it world competitive.

This week, Georgia's board of education approved a plan that allows teachers to keep using the word Evolution when teaching biology. Though, as a compromise, dinosaurs are now called Jesus Horses.

What holds for adults holds even more for children, sensitive and conscious of differences. I certainly hope that the Board of Education will think very, very seriously before it introduces this division and antagonism in our public schools.

We are a people of many races, many faiths, creeds, and religions. I do not think that the men who made the Constitution forbade the establishment of a State church because they were opposed to religion. They knew that the introduction of religious differences into American life would undermine the democratic foundations of this country. What holds for adults holds even more for children, sensitive and conscious of differences. I certainly hope that the Board of Education will think very, very seriously before it introduces this division and antagonism in our public schools.

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

Parents teach in the toughest school in the word: The School for Making People. You are the board of education, the principal, theclassroom teacher, and the janitor, all rolled into two. . . . There are few schools to train you for your job, and there is no general agreement on the curriculum. . . . You are on duty, or at least on call, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for at least 18 years for each child you have. Besides that, you have to contend with an administration that has two leaders or bosses, whichever the case may be.

This is an historic day for American public education and for our nation as we begin the journey to level the academic playing field for every student. State Boards of Education are ready to play an active role in this process and some have already started the progression of adoption. We are eager to move this agenda forward.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

To separate children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.