An education reformer is as important in America as the first lady.

That should be the goal, is that every kid in every neighborhood, despite whatever challenges they may face, are getting a great education in our public schools.

I think people don't talk enough about education and what we need to do in our public education system.

We've lost our competitive spirit. We've become so obsessed with making kids feel good about themselves that we've lost sight of building the skills they need to actually be good at things.

I think that one thing that people are missing is that we are never going to be able to fix this country's [American] economy in the long run until we fix our public education system.

An education reformer is as important in America as the first lady.

I have an absolutely unshakable faith in kids, grounded in the fact that I worked for three years in one of the worst public schools in Baltimore, with kids most people would write off because of their backgrounds. But, when I set high expectations, at the end of the day, these kids went from scoring at the bottom on standardized tests, to scoring at the top, despite their unfortunate circumstances.