A Quote by Michelle Rhee

I have an absolutely unshakable faith in kids, grounded in the fact that I worked for three years in one of the worst public schools in Baltimore, with kids most people would write off because of their backgrounds. But, when I set high expectations, at the end of the day, these kids went from scoring at the bottom on standardized tests, to scoring at the top, despite their unfortunate circumstances.
I started to play, like all kids do, not as a goalkeeper. I liked scoring goals; in the end, it's all about scoring goals.
A lot of people who don't write for kids think it's easy, because they think kids aren't as smart as they are, or that you have to dumb down what you would normally write for kids. But I think you have to work harder when you write for kids, to make sure every word is right, that it's there for the right reason.
I went to a public high school and most of the comedy was coming from the black kids and the Asian kids and the Hispanic kids. And, the coolest kids to me where always the black kids. They were always fashion forward and they always dressed the coolest. They were always the best dancers, and just the coolest people.
I grew up going to public school, and they were huge public schools. I went to a school that had 3,200 kids, and I had grade school classes with 40-some kids. Discipline was rigid. Most of the learning was rote. It worked.
The news media tends to act like the kids on a young soccer team. We all follow the ball as it moves from one side of the field to the next - like a kids' soccer game. And the kid who ends up scoring a goal was the one who's off to the corner by himself just waiting for the opportunity.
I want kids to be able to escape failing schools that trap them. And it's an unequal trapping of children. The most affluent find a way to escape. They move to a great suburban district or send their kid to a private school. The people who are trapped in the worst schools that have been terrible often for half a century? Those are the poorest kids.
Scoring, that's my thing... Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto'o, those were the guys that we looked at as kids like, 'Man, they're doing it, and they're doing it at a high level.' We would see them on TV. So, it wasn't much about basketball, to be honest, it was just those type of athletes. Those guys were the guys that we looked at as kids.
I'd get off the set of 'The Wire' at 3 A.M. or even 4 A.M. and drive home to Washington to see my kids sleep and give them a kiss. I'd get up at 7 A.M., while the kids were still in bed, and drive back to Baltimore.
High school wasn't so bad though because, by then, I had worked out that there were far more nerdy kids and poor kids than there were rich, popular kids, so, at the very least, we had them outnumbered.
I don't stay in one discipline because it's more lucrative than another. In fact, the most successful thing I ever did was 'Just Kids,' for which I had absolutely no expectations.
If the church adopts a school, and the school has kids, and the kids have parents, well, then you've reconnected the hub of a community, because you've brought together its three most fundamental institutions - church, schools, and family.
Most kids dream of scoring the perfect goal. I've always dreamed of stopping it.
What people don't realize I have put 160 kids through school. I had a gym full of children. Some of those kids slept in the gym. Some of those kids lived in the gyms. I went to those kids schools. I think with the training, I can't make a fighter have that passion that I have, and it takes years to develop a fighter.
I remember really bonding with the first generation kids, the Chinese Canadian kids, and in high school bonding with the Latin kids and the East Indian kids. It was very interesting because it made me open to lots of musical sounds.
I don't follow trends. I'm a trendsetter. I represent all the younger generations; fly kids, creative kids - they look up to me. I got a program that's called ROAR. I go to all high schools everywhere we go, and I talk to all the kids, and I give away 30-35 tickets and passes to the kids doing good in school. Stuff like that means a lot to me.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who is scoring and who is not scoring. It's about winning games.
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