Superintendents Quotes

“The state put a Broad-trained superintendent, Randy Ward, in charge of the Oakland schools ... Ward embraced the small schools but went further; his school reform plan aimed to turn the district into a marketplace of school choice while overhauling the bureaucracy. He closed low-performing schools and opened charter schools. He attracted $26 million in grants from the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Dell Foundation, and corporations based in Oakland.”
― Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

“Nor is it wise to entrust our schools to inexperienced teachers, principals, and superintendents. Education is too important to relinquish to the vagaries of the market and the good intentions of amateurs.

American education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it is threatening to destroy public education. Who will stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?”
― Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

“To our nation’s principals and superintendents, where hides your series of leadership talks. And why? I find your performance lackluster at best. For the love of God, pick up Alfie Kohn’s book, which was published over three decades ago, and do something about it. Be better. You should foster, facilitate, not gatekeep. Demand excellence over the entirety of your school grounds from start to finish of every single school day. Excellence, and nothing less. Not for our children’s future. For their now.”
― Miles Garrett, Executive Leadership: A Warfighter's Perspective