WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Aspire Early College Prep English teacher Eleshia Smith leads a chant during a rally outside of Aspira Business and Finance High School

Aspira charter teacher Marines Martinez

“Aspira just finally agreed to our terms. It’s just a tentative agreement, but we did note that Aspira is finally listening to us." -- Tribune

Valerie Strauss

But words have meaning — even if they are only symbolic and not legally enforceable — especially at a time when public schools are more segregated than at any time since the 1960s and school choice policies favored by President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have been found to increase school segregation. -- Alabama’s constitution still calls for ‘separate schools for white and colored children’

Philly Councilwoman Helen Gym

 Faced with continued austerity, we marched, took over school-board meetings and lobbied City Council offices. And we started to win more victories...If the Philadelphia experience is any measure, this uprising won’t just be limited to our schools. It will form the basis of a movement which will not only withstand an authoritarian federal agenda but will also grow more unified in spite of it. -- Bill Moyers & Co.

U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL)

Men paying for prenatal care coverage like buying a cabin 'you're never going to use'. -- The Southern

E.J. Dionne Jr.

 What some feared might be a Trump Juggernaut is instead the Trump Jalopy, a wheezing, unsightly contraption with grinding gears and missing parts. -- Washington Post

 Speaker Paul Ryan  

...said he didn’t know how many people would lose their insurance under his Obamacare replacement plan. In a revealing exchange with CBS News, he suggested that it was “up to people” how far the uninsured rate would climb. -- Think Progress