My vision is that schools need to be community centers. Schools need to be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day six, seven days a week, 12 months out of the year, with a whole host of activities, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

It's fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from sort of white suburban moms who, all of a sudden, their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, their schools aren't quite as good as they thought they were. And that's pretty scary.

When I ask teachers why they teach, they almost always say that it is because they want to make a difference in the lives of children.

Even in a time of fiscal austerity, education is more than just an expense.

Teachers support evaluations based on multiple measures: student growth, classroom observation and feedback from peers and parents.

Teachers say their schools of education did not adequately prepare them for the classroom. They would have welcomed more mentoring and feedback in their early years.

Money is not the reason that people enter teaching.