David Plank Quotations

The interesting thing is we've just had negative growth, the economy shrank in the fourth quarter of last year and it doesn't look like it's going to grow much in the first quarter of this year.

This is an issue we simply don't talk about anymore.

It is the least understood segment because they are the least outspoken. I have no handle on that, and I don't think any researchers do. It is a silent part of the movement.

It is profoundly discouraging to learn that the share of African-American kids attending segregated schools has barely changed in the last decade since school choice policies were adopted in Michigan. We should all be concerned about the kind of society we are creating, in which more than half of African-American students in Michigan go to schools in which virtually none of their classmates are not also African-American.

There is clearly a third group out there now: Parents who feel they can do a better job than the public schools,

But the state's concern should be about the other 5 percent. We have no information about what kind of education they are receiving from their parents. Not finding out is a failing on the part of the state of Michigan.