Donna Shalala Quotes

You go to college not only for the latest knowledge but also to meet people from different backgrounds. That’s the genius of the American higher-education system compared with the Europeans’. We don’t simply skim the elite.

You can’t have a university without having free speech, even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they’re not going to hear them in America. I believe it’s part of their education.

What you really remember at the beginning was that you have to throw a budget together. We made some terrible mistakes at the beginning in my own budget that took us at least a year to catch up on.

We need to drive down requirements for the schools. In the 19th century, we increased the quality of the schools by higher education saying, ‘You can’t come in unless you have these skills, unless you’ve taken these courses.’ We did that in Wisconsin when I was there, it helped to transform the secondary school system.

We know the parental support, community support, makes a difference. It’s not just the metrics of testing and putting pressure on the schools and on the teachers.

We have to mainstream everybody. No matter what their circumstances when they were growing up. Part of that is knowing that after they’re finished with school, everybody in this country gets up and goes to work.