Boys want to grow up to be like their male role models. And boys who grow up in homes with absent fathers search the hardest to figure out what it means to be male.

Build an organization that can tackle the tough things and keep moving.

Why is it that when we had rotary phones, when we were having folks being crippled by polio, that we were teaching the same way then that we're doing right now?

Osama Bin Laden is not going to come here and destroy America. Our education system is doing that just fine.

Education is the only billion dollar industry that tolerates abject failure.

When kids know that you refuse to let them fail ... they don't give up as easy. So sometimes they don't have it inside, [but] they're like,'You know, I don't want to do this, but I know my mother's going to be mad.'That matters to kids, and it helps get them through.

Middle-class families know education begins at birth.