Monthly QuotED: 6 Notable Quotes That Made Education Headlines in April, From Columbine to the Return of Cursive — and a School Dress Code for Parents
QuotED is a roundup of the most notable quotes behind America’s top education headlines — taken from our daily EduClips, which spotlights morning headlines from America’s 15 largest school districts. Read previous EduClips installments here.
“Well, you know, I’m going to die in here and I’m a virgin and I will have never met Bruce Springsteen.” —Heather Martin, recalling what she told a friend nearly 20 years ago as two gunmen terrorized Columbine High School. Today, she teaches high school English in nearby Aurora, Colorado. (Read at The74Million.org)
“Parents, we do value you as a partner in your child’s education. However, please know we have to have standards.” —Madison High School Principal Carlotta Outley Brown, announcing that the school will turn away parents if they show up at the school wearing bonnets, pajamas, hair rollers or leggings, among other clothing items. (Read at The Houston Chronicle)
“It defies common sense. It defies logic.” —Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Public Safety Commission, which is investigating the massacre that killed 17 people, on the under-reporting and sometimes over-reporting of crimes at Florida schools. (Read at the Sun-Sentinel)
“The motivation was choice. We couldn’t get choice for choice’s sake. We couldn’t get choice for poor kids. But if the school is violent or dangerous…I could get a majority vote for that.” —Former representative Bob Schaffer, a Republican from Colorado, on how the “unsafe school choice” provision made it into federal education law. (Read at The74Million.org)
“I don’t want to be No. 1 on that list.” —Fred Birkett, principal of the Alakai O Kauai Charter School, ranked No. 1 in the state for charter schools whose parents have obtained exemptions to allow their kids to not be vaccinated against common childhood diseases. (Read at Honolulu Civil Beat)
“When we want to embrace the past, when we get nostalgic for the past, when we think it was better, then we get all warm and fuzzy about handwriting.” —Historian Tamara Plakins Thornton, on the resurgence of cursive writing. (Read at NPR)
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