In high performing countries, principals are working with highly qualified teachers who come from the top tiers of the graduation range, who have been rigorously prepared in universities and through supervised practice in schools, and who remain in education for all of their careers.

The Common Curriculum can easily become the karaoke curriculum, where everyone just follows the bouncing ball of the script.

Teachers who don't pull their weight drag down the profession and their colleagues with it.

The most important emotion in classrooms is surprise.

Although everyone wants to change the teacher, it's time for the agents of educational reform to change themselves.

Education leaders must have the will at times to release leadership to the teachers the parents and the students.

One or two bad teachers is a problem with the teachers. A school with many bad teachers is a problem of leadership.