Political Quotes

“I am here today to celebrate the 18th Annual National Charter Schools Week and thank the students, parents, and teachers from charter schools across the United States for their ongoing contributions to education. Senator Bennet of Colorado and I introduced a resolution marking this event, which the Senate approved yesterday. Let me tell you my favorite story about charter schools. It was 24 years ago, 1992. I was in my last month as U.S. Secretary of Education, and as my last official act, I wrote a letter to every school superintendent in the country asking them to consider replicating the early success of the State of Minnesota in creating charter schools. There were about a dozen of them then, and they were created by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota. That was consistent with what President George H.W. Bush and I had been encouraging, which was what we called start-from-scratch schools--schools that gave teachers more freedom and parents more choices. We thought that could improve education in the country and might lead to what we call new American schools. The first charter schools were created in the State of Minnesota nearly a quarter of a century ago, led by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and there were about a dozen of them. Since then, there has been broad bipartisan, mainstream support for charter schools. Let's remember that charter schools are public schools.…”