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

An attack on public education is an attack on democracy.

What should we think of someone who never admits error, never entertains doubt but adheres unflinchingly to the same ideas all his life, regardless of new evidence? Doubt and skepticism are signs of rationality. When we are too certain of our opinions, we run the risk of ignoring any evidence that conflicts with our views. It is doubt that shows we are still thinking, still willing to reexamine hardened beliefs when confronted with new facts and new evidence.

Can teachers successfully educate children to think for themselves if teachers are not treated as professionals who think for themselves?

There is something fundamentally antidemocratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society's wealthiest people; when the wealthiest of these foundations are joined in common purpose, they represent an unusually powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratic institutions.

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

We should totally ban for-profit charters. For-profit's first obligation is to its stockholders, not to its children.