Research shows that children do better in school and are less likely to drop out when fathers are involved. Engaged parents can strengthen communities, mentor and tutor students, and demonstrate through their actions how much they value their children's education.

There was nothing more important I could do than be supportive as a dad.

We've seen more reform in the last year than we've seen in decades, and we haven't spent a dime yet. It's staggering how the Recovery Act is driving change.

This is a devastating problem, is, the longer our children are in school, the worse they do. Year after year after year, our children in America are falling further behind. Our 3- and 4-year-olds enter kindergarten OK, and they fall further and further behind. Each year, children in other countries are learning more than children in this country. And so the gap between American student performance in Singapore and Finland and South Korea and Canada and these other countries, the gap widens year after year after year.

We all have a role to play - the President, Congress, parents, students and schools - in making college affordable and keeping the middle class dream alive.

If the goal is to dramatically improve college completion rates, not college-going rates by itself but college completion, it's not just a college problem. We need a big focus on early childhood education. Our early childhood education system is pretty good in this country. Not enough students have opportunity. And, very discouragingly, they lose their advantage because they go to poor schools after that. So, let's focus on our babies.

The jobs of the future, as you know so well, are knowledge-based. You need college-educated folks to do this work. And so the consequences for our country are absolutely devastating if we don't start to behave in very different ways.