The factory model of education is the wrong model for the 21st century. Today, our schools must prepare all students for college and careers-and do far more to personalize instruction and employ the smart use of technology.

Most teachers still say they love teaching though they wouldn't mind a little more respect for their challenging work and a little less blame for America's educational shortcomings.

There's so much that we're doing wrong today. And studies show we're one of three countries that doesn't invest more in disadvantaged communities.

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.

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.

When schools truly become centers of the community, where you have extraordinary teachers, the best teachers, the best principals, great nonprofit partners coming in during the non-school hours to support and do enrichment activities, social services, then those students will beat the odds, will beat poverty, will beat violence in the community, will beat sometimes dysfunctional families, and be productive citizens long term. They will go to college.

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.