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Education Quotes by Thomas Sowell

39 Education quotes by Thomas Sowell

All Education quotes Thomas Sowell’s page

Thomas Sowell notes that many campuses have become echo chambers where bigotry and propaganda replace real debate. He argues that some so programs act like expensive walls that keep students away from everyday reality. He also warns that even college graduates can be ignorant if they are sheltered from the world outside university walls.

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“To the Ibos, Western education was a rare opportunity to be seized.”

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Some full professors could more accurately be described as empty professors.

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Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.

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Students are often in no position to judge 'relevance' until long after the fact.

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Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination.

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“By the late eighteenth century, the lowlands of Scotland had developed the most extensive system of education in”

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Just what is it that academics have to fear if they stand up for common decency, instead of letting campus barbarians run…

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Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.

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Whenever people talk glibly of a need to achieve educational "excellence," I think of what an improvement it would be if our…

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“The purpose of education is to give the student the intellectual tools to analyze, whether verbally or numerically, and to reach conclusions…

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Creating whole departments of ethnic, gender, and other 'studies' was part of the price of academic peace. All too often, these 'studies'…

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The big problem in the long process of dumbing down the schools is that you can reach a point of no return.…

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“The need for Nigerian clerks and other subordinates to help man the colonial administration required creating a new class of African people…

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In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the…

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Ideological bigotry has become the norm on even our most prestigious campuses, where students can go for years without reading or hearing…

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Study after study, not only here but in other countries, show that the most affordable housing is where there has been the…

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Not since the days of the Hitler Youth have young people been subjected to more propaganda on more politically correct issues. At…

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“In other words, it is the amount of money that colleges and universities can get—from tuition, endowment income, donations, etc.—which determines how…

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Someone once said that the most important knowledge is knowledge of our own ignorance. Our schools are depriving millions of students of…

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Economics is a study of cause-and-effect relationships in an economy. It's purpose is to discern the consequences of various ways of allocating…

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“That educators who have repeatedly failed to do what they are hired to do, and trained to do, should take on sweeping…

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“The availability of federal grants and loans to help students meet rising tuition costs virtually ensures that those costs will rise. A…

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Our whole educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities, is increasingly turning out people who have never heard enough conflicting…

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“The futility of attempting to upgrade the teaching profession by paying higher salaries is obvious, so long as legal barriers keep out…

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“It would be impossible to understand the persistence and vehemence of these arguments against test scores without understanding the political purpose they…

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“Like mismatched minority students, mismatched minority faculty have sought refuge in non-intellectual pursuits, such as community activities and campus political activism, in…

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Apparently almost anyone can do a better job of educating children than our so-called 'educators' in the public schools. Children who are…

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“Whether blatant or subtle, brainwashing has become a major, time-consuming activity in American education at all levels. Some zealots have not hesitated…

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“The era of mass education and the standardization of the English language left such expressions as marks of uneducated people in the…

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Those parts of history that would undermine the vision of the Left - which prevails in our education system from elementary school…

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You need only visit campuses where whole departments feature soft courses preaching a sense of victimhood and resentment, and see the consequences…

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Just as any moron can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and ill-educated people who run our schools can undermine…

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One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They…

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Too often what are called "educated" people are simply people who have been sheltered from reality for years in ivy-covered buildings. Those…

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“Outside the world of education, few would be confident, or even comfortable, claiming that it is a lack of self-esteem which leads…

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“Other countries whose educational systems achieve more than ours often do so in part by attempting less. While school children in Japan…

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“Top colleges turn out extraordinary graduates because they take in extraordinary freshmen. That tells very little about what happened in the intervening…

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Just as members of American teachers unions often send their own children to private schools, so unionized workers at government-run hospitals in…

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So long as public schools are treated as places that exist to provide guaranteed jobs to members of the teachers' unions, do…

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More by Thomas Sowell

The vision of the left, full of envy and resentment, takes its worst toll on those at the bottom - whether black or white…

There is no bigger waste of time than doing 90% of what is necessary.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten…

“In 1962, Democratic President John F. Kennedy, like both Democratic and Republican Presidents and Secretaries of the Treasury in earlier years, pointed out that “it…

Ideological bigotry has become the norm on even our most prestigious campuses, where students can go for years without reading or hearing anything that…

Bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos.

“One third of all Scots in the mid-nineteenth century moved from one county to another”

The difference is that we have the hardest and most painful evidence that there was a Holocaust. But, for the global warming scenario that…

“Just as price fluctuations allocate scarce resources which have alternative uses, price controls which limit those fluctuations reduce the incentives for individuals to limit…

The greatest danger to the liberal vision are facts about the consequences of liberalism itself and the laws, policies, and ways of life that…

Having spent years ruining the housing markets with their interference, leading to a housing meltdown that has taken the whole economy down with it,…

Do all children have some inherent right to live in America if they have done nothing wrong? If not, then why should the children…

What 'eminent domain' laws mean in practice is that politicians have a right to seize your property and turn it over to someone else,…

“those parts of the British Isles without the advantage of coal deposits or ports, industrialization was as handicapped as in other countries.”

The whole idea of equal justice under law is completely incompatible with the idea of judges deciding cases according to "empathy".