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.

In America, your zip code or your socioeconomic status should never determine the quality of your education.

Education is the civil rights issue of our generation.

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.

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.

No one is mandating merit pay.

A postsecondary education is the ticket to economic success in America.