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QUOTES FROM MAKING SCHOOLS WORK

So many children in schools that serve disadvantaged children are getting instruction that is very poor, that’s very slow, that’s not attune to their needs. And as a result, they fail in extraordinarily large numbers.
- Robert Slavin, Co-founder, Success for All

There’s so many people out there who still have a mindset that because of a zip code you’re born in or the color of your skin or something like that, that there’s limitations to what one can achieve in this world.
- Michael Feinberg, Co-founder, KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program)

That achievement gap still exists and we see the growing economic might of places like China, and we want to remain first in the world, third, or at least fifth.
- Warren Simmons, Executive Director, Annenberg Institute of School Reform

People [who] say that low-income children, minority children, can’t excel at extraordinary levels is flat out wrong. They just haven’t seen the evidence.
- Eric Smith, former Superintendent, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Charlotte, North Carolina

If you can help youngsters to begin to connect to a goal beyond high school, and they can begin to connect the courses they’re taking to that goal, you have a youth going someplace.
- Gene Bottoms, Founder, High Schools That Work

I think about my friends. Sometimes in my head, I’ll talk to God. I be telling him, ‘Thank you for this opportunity.’ Because most of my friends, like my other homeboy, Jorge, he’s locked up cause he stole some jewelry and stuff.
- Reynaldo Garcia, 8th grader, KIPP 3D Academy
Houston, Texas

You cannot say, ‘I can’t teach these kids because they don’t speak English well enough,’ or ‘I can’t teach these kids because they’re too poor,’ or ‘I can’t teach these kids because nobody read to them at home…’ They’re wonderful children. And they can read. They can do it.
- Andrea Guy, 1st grade teacher, Centennial Elementary School
Mount Vernon, Washington

You have a certain percentage of students and they are going to learn no matter what – probably about 20% of the kids that come here. Whatever you throw at them, they’re going to love. But then we have about 80% of the kids that need some kind of a hook, some kind of something to get their interest, something that will make them want to come to school and want to learn and want to do their best.
- Joyce Phillips, Principal, Corbin High School
Corbin, Kentucky

We need to believe that all children can learn. But then what we need to act on is changing the word ‘can’ to ‘will.’ So we need to act on the fact that all children will learn.
- Michael Feinberg, Co-founder, KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program)

If you’re not dissatisfied, you’ll never change anything. And when I mean dissatisfied, I mean dissatisfied in your heart and your guts. And saying, ‘This is not what I can live with. I believe that kids can do much more.’ And as adults, we have a responsibility to do much more or we shouldn’t be here.
- Elaine Fink, former Deputy Superintendent and Superintendent, District 2, New York City, and former Director, Leadership Academy, San Diego, California

Our teachers will do whatever it takes to get the kids to learn, to get the kids excited about school, to get them to achieve at very high levels. They will not accept anything less than high levels of achievement.
- Joyce Phillips, Principal, Corbin High School
Corbin, Kentucky

It’s absolutely a crime to provide children with schooling that’s any less outstanding than it needs to be to have children succeed.
- Robert Slavin, Co-founder, Success for All

Youngsters will work harder when they’re working on real, authentic problems or projects – like [the] real world – and those are crucial for motivation.
- Gene Bottoms, Founder, High Schools That Work

We have this very simple theory: kids learn from teachers. If the kids need to learn more and more powerfully, then the teachers need to know more and their teaching has to be more powerful.
- Anthony Alvarado, former Superintendent, District 2
New York City

Professional development is the lifeblood of all of teaching and learning, and it’s how we learn. It’s how we keep learning. It’s how we add to our store of knowledge.
- Daria Rigney, former Principal, PS 126; now Instructional Superintendent
New York City

The way educational reform has been defeated year in and year out in urban America is those who resist change, those who are tied to old ways of seeing and doing, simply wait out the reformers. To overcome that cycle – to break that – require that we move quickly.
- Alan Bersin, Superintendent, San Diego City Schools
San Diego, California

It is very clear that even poor kids and kids of color who come from difficult neighborhoods can, in fact, achieve. And we need them to achieve as a country.
- Kati Haycock, Director, The Education Trust

I wasn’t real sure if I wanted to go to college or not before I started taking this class, but [I] definitely wanna go into mechanical drafting, have that as a major… It’s made me wanna go to college.
- Jordy Davis, 11th grader, Corbin High School
Corbin, Kentucky

It’s about opening doors. It’s about life. It’s about generations. It is about education, but more than just book education. It’s about who you are. It’s about equality. The color of your skin shouldn’t determine what kind of school you can go to.
- Diana Soliz, Assistant Principal, KIPP 3D Academy
Houston, Texas

Kids lives and their academic success depends on our ability to be fluid and dynamic and to be able to be responsive to their success or their failure.
- Eric Smith, former Superintendent, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Charlotte, North Carolina

We want to see them excel. I think that the kids see from the adults at this school that we are willing to go the extra mile, that we will come in before school; we will come in after school. We will meet them where they are.
- Pam Bishop, English Teacher, Corbin High School
Corbin, Kentucky

You’ve got 90 minutes times 180 days to have kids really learn to read in a given year. You can’t waste a moment of that.
- Robert Slavin, Co-founder, Success for All

Sticking to things that seem to have at least a minimal track record of effectiveness somewhere else is one of the keys to getting good results.
- Steve Fleischman, Managing Director
American Institutes for Research

We look at the kids – a little 4th grader, 9 year old – and say… “Do you realize you’re not going to be able to watch SpongeBob any more? Your life is going to change. You’re going to have homework.” We let them know how it’s going to be. We don’t sugar coat it.”
- Dan Caesar, Principal, KIPP 3D Academy
Houston, Texas

The Comer process has meant to Jordan success. It has meant putting people together building relationships, making sure that every one is empowered to make decisions in the best interests of children.
- Maurice Harvey, Principal, Jordan Community School
Chicago Illinois

Had I not walked through the doors of that school and had it not been a Comer school, I don’t know where I would be today. I don’t think I would have my kids now. I think the state would have my children.
- Rhonda Jones, parent of children in Jordan Community School
Chicago, Illinois

The reason I changed is I don’t want to be living a low life – thug life – or anything like that, beating up people, making easy money. The thing that I would want to say is to other people out in the world that if I can change, then you can change. Everybody can change.
- Reynaldo Garcia, 8th grader, KIPP 3D Academy
Houston, Texas

Right now we have this little anecdote that goes out that says all children can learn. And everybody really ascribes belief in that. But the problem with that is that that’s only half of the equation. The other half of the equation is all children can learn if adults provide high quality instruction.
- Anthony Alvarado, former Superintendent, District 2
New York City

If you’re in business, you watch your quarterly results very closely to know whether your business strategies are paying off. If you’re a physician, you watch the patient’s temperature or lung function or whatever it might be very closely to see whether you’re providing the right kind of treatment. In any successful field, people watch outcomes very, very closely. In education we have to do the same.
- Robert Slavin, Co-founder, Success for All

When folks really understand the power of the data, they want that information immediately. You don’t want a day to go by where you don’t know how your students are doing cause you want to be right back in that classroom the next day working with that.
- Susan Agruso, Instructional Accountability,
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Charlotte, North Carolina

If you are going to have school systems and they are going to operate as “systems” then getting them to function in a way that is in pursuit of a goal defined around higher academic performance is essential – critical – if progress is going to be made.
- Michael Casserly, Executive Director, Council of the Great City Schools

People like us who’ve had the benefit of living most of our lives in a country that remained at the top of the world, we have a lot of work to do to ensure that that future continues to exist for our children and grandchildren.
- Warren Simmons, Executive Director, Annenberg Institute of School Reform