The ladder was there, from the gutter to the university, and for those stalwart enough to ascend it, the schools were a boon and a path out of poverty.

Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.

Accountability makes no sense when it undermines the larger goals of education.

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

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.

If charter schools are not more successful on average than the public schools they replace, what is accomplished by demolishing public education? What is the rationale for authorizing for-profit charters or charter management organizations with high-paid executives, since their profits and high salaries are paid by taxpayers' dollars?

Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions