Independence is useful, but caring attitudes and behaviors shrivel up in a culture where each person is responsible only for himself.

Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other students.

Whoever said there's no such thing as a stupid question never looked carefully at a standardized test.

We can't value only what is easy to measure; measurable outcomes may be the least important results of learning.

In short, with each of the thousand-and-one problems that present themselves in family life, our choice is between controlling and teaching, between creating an atmosphere of distrust and one of trust, between setting an example of power and helping children to learn responsibility, between quick-fix parenting and the kind that's focused on long-term goals.

There are different kinds of motivation, and the kind matters more than the amount.

John Dewey reminded us that the value of what students do 'resides in its connection with a stimulation of greater thoughtfulness, not in the greater strain it imposes.