Most people believe that schools were good enough when they were children and that they are good enough now. But the dynamic growth of our system of education has spawned serious problems of educational quality.

Unless the schools provide our children with a vision of human possibility that enlightens and empowers them with knowledge and taste, they will simply play their role in someone else's marketing schemes. Unless they understand deeply the sources of our democracy, they will take it for granted and fail to exercise their rights and responsibilities.

We will continue to chase rainbows unless we recognize that they are rainbows and there is no pot of gold at the end of them

The greatest obstacle to those who hope to reform American education is complacency.

In DC, policymakers think that if we can only have high enough standards, tough enough tests, and hold people accountable, we can close the achievement gap. And it hasn't happened. Yet the new law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, is based on the same test-based and market-driven framework and ideology, except it lets the states do it.

When you succeed at keeping almost everyone in school, you must figure out ways to educate everyone you keep in school.

Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.