My job isn't to win popularity contests.

The media has had its fun with me.

I consider protecting all students, including LGBTQ students, not only a key priority for the Department, but for every school in America.

At my direction, the Department's Office for Civil Rights remains committed to investigating all claims of discrimination, bullying, and harassment against those who are most vulnerable in our schools.

If we can manage to break free, to open the system and embrace all choices for education, we will be the first to give politicians awards to hang on their office walls.

The older generations are too wedded to political parties, too wedded to romantic memories of what education was like when they were kids, and too wedded to the status quo group that clings to power.

If you don't live in an area with good public schools, you can move to a different place if you have the financial means to do so.

Teaching is hard. It takes a lot of skill. Not everyone who tries can do it well. We need to admit that and act accordingly. We should reward and respect great teachers by paying them more, and we should stop rewarding seniority over effectiveness.

If a parent chooses to go to a school that is not a public school, then that is a decision made and a contract made with that provider.

Every child in America deserves to be in a safe environment that is free from discrimination.

President-elect Trump and I know it won't be Washington, D.C., that unlocks our nation's potential, nor a bigger bureaucracy, tougher mandates, or a federal agency. The answer is local control and listening to parents, students, and teachers.

If you can't get cell phone service in your living room, then your particular provider is failing you. You should have the option to find a network that does work.

Government likes committees... a lot. Committees kill all the really good ideas and generally all the really bad ideas. They produce middle-ground mush.

Government tends to stifle innovation, and it abhors improvisation. Any good military strategist will tell you that a battle plan rarely survives past the first engagement. After that, you have to improvise to survive and to win.

Government tends to believe in top-down solutions, and government fears of bottom-up solutions.

As a kid, I grew up middle class, but my father was a great innovator with an entrepreneurial spirit, and it wasn't long before my family became part of the infamous 1%.

Our nation's commitment is to provide a quality education to every child to serve the public common good. Accordingly, we must shift the paradigm to think of education funding as investments made in individual children, not in institutions or buildings.

It shouldn't matter what type of school a student attends, so long as the school is the right fit for that student.

Teachers deserve more respect than many give them, and more opportunities than the system affords them today.

If the question is around gun violence and the results of that, please know that my heart bleeds and is broken for those families that have lost any individual due to gun violence.

My family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party.

When governors such as John Engler, Mike Huckabee, and Mike Pence were driving the conversation on voluntary high standards driven by local voices, it all made sense.

I do support high standards, strong accountability, and local control.

I don't think Donald Trump represents the Republican Party... I think more and more people are going to realize that they really don't trust him.