Photo courtesy of the Wall Street Journal

You should be able to give your children the kind of education that allows them to dream even bigger, to go even farther, and to accomplish even more than you could ever imagine.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, presenting the Democratic National Committee’s 2012 platform during the party’s national convention. While the platform was silent on expanding school choice beyond charter schools, it at least made clear that all children should get high-quality education and have the expanded experiences needed for lifelong success.

There is a moral cost to our failing schools. We say that every child in America has an equal opportunity. Tell that to a kid in whose classroom learning isn’t respected. Tell that to a parent stuck in a school where there is no leadership. Tell that to a young, talented teacher who just got laid off because she didn’t have tenure. The sad truth is that equality of opportunity doesn’t exist in many of our schools. We give some kids a chance, but not all. That failure is the great moral and economic issue of our time. And it’s hurting all of America.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, during last week’s Republican National Convention.

I will speak plainly, on another subject of importance. We are not educating all of our children… Not for nothing are we the biggest education spenders and among the lowest education achievers among the leading industrial nations… I say this not to the teachers, but to their unions. I say this, if education were a war, you would be losing it. If it were a business, you would be driving it into bankruptcy. If it were a patient, it would be dying.

And to the teachers unions I say, when I am president, I will disregard your political power, for the sake of the parents, the children, the schools and the nation. I plan to enrich your vocabulary with those words you fear – school choice and competition and opportunity scholarships – all this for low and middle income families so that you will join the rest of us in accountability, while others compete with you for the commendable privilege of giving our children a real education.

There is no reason why those who live on any street in America should not have the same right as the person who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – the right to send your child to the school of your choice. And if we want to reduce crime, if we want to reduce crime and drug use and teen pregnancies, let’s start by giving all our children a first-class education.

Former Kansas Senator Bob Dole, taking aim at education traditionalists during his acceptance of the 1996 Republican presidential nomination.

We do not build and maintain strong and vibrant public schools by turning them into educational monopolies

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in a 1982 profile in theNew York Times, on the need to expand choice.