WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Obama's commencement speech in Memphis

"We need to encourage this kind of change [small academies] all across America. We need to reward the reforms that are driven not by Washington, but by principals and teachers and parents. That's how we'll make progress in education - not from the top down, but from the bottom up." -- Seattle Times

One-sided class warfare

This week, Representative Paul Ryan, a Republican of Wisconsin, suggested to the Economic Club of Chicago that the president’s attempt to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans amounted to “class warfare” and promoted “class envy.”  -- Charles Blow, NYT

 Gates paid millions for teachers to advocate against unions, for "merit-pay" 

 “We’ve learned that school-level investments aren’t enough to drive systemic changes, The importance of advocacy has gotten clearer and clearer.” -- Gates Foundation spokesman Allan C. Golston