American education has been littered with failed fads and foolish ideas for the past century.

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.

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

Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions

You can't lead your troops if your troops do not trust you.

The foundations demand that public schools and teachers be held accountable for performance, but they themselves are accountable to no one. If their plans fail, no sanctions are levied against them. They are bastions of unaccountability.

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.