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It takes a special statement to become
the EIA Communiqué Quote of the Week, and a singular one to be
included as one of the Quotes of the Year. So you can imagine how difficult
it was to choose the Quotes of the Decade. I found it impossible to chop it
down to 10, so here are the 17 most memorable quotes of the 2000s, in
countdown order. I have cited the source but have not embedded the original
links, since many of them no longer exist.
17) "The nice thing about reducing class
size is that it makes teachers happy in their own right and it's the one
thing that we know how to do." - Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, education
policy professor at the University of Chicago. (February 22, 2009 New
York Times)
16) "With increasing cost of college
loans and health care and the fact that the buying power of the teacher
dollar is no more than what it was 20 years ago, we're pretty much back to
where we were when I started teaching in the 1960s. I had to work in the
summer to eat." - Cheryl Umberger of the Tennessee Education Association.
(May 23, 2008 Tennessean)
15) "What would we really do
differently if we really did listen to our members? First, we would very
rarely, if ever again, give a cent to a politician or a political party." -
former Ohio Education Association Executive Director Robert Barkley, giving
his farewell speech at OEA's Representative Assembly in December 2000.
14) "You deserve a President who
understands what I'm about to say." - U.S. Senator John Kerry, during a July
16, 2004 speech at the American Federation of Teachers convention in
Washington, DC.
13) "While building efficiencies of
scale might fit a sound business model, it is the antithesis of sound
educational practice." - Hawaii State Teachers Association Vice President
Joan Lewis. (November 1, 2005 Honolulu Advertiser)
12) "Folks, we're in trouble. If we
were in private business, we'd be out of business." - Kenneth Burnley, chief
executive officer of the Detroit Public Schools. (April 6, 2001 Detroit
News)
11) "You shouldn't be angry about how
much teachers get paid, but how little money most everyone else makes." -
Portland Oregonian columnist S. Renee Mitchell. (February 27, 2006
Oregonian)
10) "When the scores go up, it's not
just meaningless. It's worrisome." - Alfie Kohn. (October 18, 2008 Salt
Lake Tribune)
9) "A man without vision might as well
be blind." - a delegate to the NEA Representative Assembly, debating NBI 14,
which dealt with the state of art and music education in America's public
schools. (July 3, 2006 NEA Representative Assembly)
8) "If they don't agree to everything I
want, we will be in impasse." - United Teachers of Dade President Pat
Tornillo, describing his approach to emergency labor negotiations with the
Miami-Dade County School Board. (January 16, 2002 Miami Herald)
7) "We expect parents to work in the
best interest of the kids. We're working in the best interest of the
teachers." - Hudson (Ohio) Education Association President David Spohn.
(October 9, 2003 Akron Beacon Journal)
6) "The inventory of items seized from
the downtown Washington apartment of Barbara Bullock on Dec. 19 reads like
the manifest of a pirate ship, firearms and all." - Washington City Paper
reporter David Morton, describing the situation at the Washington Teachers
Union under former President Barbara Bullock, in his cover story,
"Membership Has Its Privileges." (January 24-30, 2003 Washington City
Paper)
5) "What worries me at the moment are
the unintended effects of this 'choice' agenda. The Government is keen to
give parents choice over which school their children attend. So lots of
people are no longer sending their children to local schools. That has led
to more and more children going by car instead of walking and we know that
lower levels of physical activity can lead to obesity." - Roger Mackett,
University College, London. (January 16, 2009 London Daily Telegraph)
4) "Black people can be gullible." -
Andre J. Hornsby, president of the National Alliance of Black School
Educators, offering his explanation for the high rate of African-American
support for school choice. (May 30, 2001 Education Week)
3) "What happened on the plantation
when the slaves had enough?" - Baltimore Teachers Union President Marietta
English, unhappy with the district's contract proposal. (April 25, 2007
Baltimore Sun)
2) "People take money every day for things I would not do… there are people
that are paid to be assassins. Sometimes it's just not worth the sacrifice
you would have to make for the money." - Metro Nashville Education
Association President Jamye Merritt, explaining why her union opposes
performance pay. (January 7, 2007 Tennessean)
But for an unmatched combination of
hyperbole, metaphor and faulty history, there can be only one Public
Education Quote of the Decade:
1) "The struggle in which we are engaged
is as vital to our future today as was the outcome of the Civil War to our
nation in 1860 (sic). The goal of these locusts is to impose their
will on state after state until they have completely demolished government
as we know it. There is a time for every generation to rise to the call -
when the very existence of our nation, our state, our values, our culture
and our public schools are threatened with extinction." - Nebraska State
Education Association Executive Director Jim Griess on Initiative 423, a
ballot measure that would have limited state government spending to previous
years' amounts, with allowed increases for inflation and population growth.
(October 2006 The NSEA Voice) |
