I believe everyone in the education sector should be looking at evidence, reassessing, making tweaks to figure out what works, I think it's a positive model.

There are a lot of polls that show that actually Americans have a pretty high opinion of teachers, that Americans think teachers are just about as prestigious as doctors.

If you look at the early nineteenth century you see the idea that we educate children to be voters and to be participants in our popular democracy. And then at the turn of the century when more and more immigrants are coming into the schools, Americanization becomes a more explicit part of the agenda.

If you're afraid to talk to the other adults in your school it is definitely throughout history the hallmark of a failing school. When I was writing about the teachers' strike in New York City in 1968, the middle school where events triggered that strike was a place where teachers were known to hide in their classrooms.

I don't think school reform should be motivated by missionary zeal. I think it should be motivated by evidence of what works. I have been critical of Teach For America in the past but I think one of the things about their model that's interesting is that they're constantly looking at it and whether what they're doing works and reassessing their model, and making changes. So to the extent that I believe everyone in the education sector should be looking at evidence, reassessing, making tweaks to figure out what works, I think it's a positive model.

Younger teachers are definitely more likely to have worked at charter schools as opposed to have just heard of them. Charter schools explicitly look, often, to hire younger people.

I think a lot of people truly underestimate how much planning is involved in a teacher's work cycle.