City Year is taking on some of the toughest work in education.

Surveys show that many talented and committed young people are reluctant to enter teaching for the long haul because they think the profession is low-paying and not prestigious enough.

I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina.

Money is not the reason that people enter teaching.

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.

I just think we can't do enough of this [student exchanges]... And when you get young children traveling internationally, I think they come back different people. And you can't put a price tag - you can't put a value on that.

Education is the civil rights issue of our generation.