I think it'd be useful for parents to know kind of what is the culture of an institution.

And I think that we in America need to understand that many schools need improvement, and particularly with respect to how they're serving minority children.

But the other notion is, we also believe that those folks closest on the ground that we're holding accountable for the results can decide, and ought to evaluate which programs get results.

Higher education is confronting challenges, like the economy is, about the need for a higher number of more adequately trained, more highly educated citizenry.

My understanding is that Kansas, Massachusetts, they've been more pioneers on the special education side.

We want to obviously foster a relationship that we're a partner with states; that we all share the same goals of closing the achievement gap, just as the Congress does; and that we're practical and sophisticated enough to understand what they're talking about.

It's a hard process to navigate... to figure out where your kid ought to go to college.