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.

I want to be a children’s hero… Children need heroes because heroes give hope; without hope they have no future.

An extended school day gives administrators the ability to ensure children get a well-rounded education.

Over the past five years, I've met several presidents, several secretaries of education ... and there is no plan. If you want to save your children, you're going to have to do it yourself. It's just us.

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?

One of the things that sells music is when the artist is looked at as someone who's come up from the streets. Not just any streets, but the toughest, meanest streets of the urban ghetto. And that's called 'street credibility'.

When I was growing up, kids used to talk about snitching... It never extended as a cultural norm outside of the gangsters.