Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.

The history of our nation is intertwined with a certain religious tradition, and that the First Amendment was not intended to result in the complete exclusion of religious beliefs from our public classrooms.

It is ironic that anyone who appeals to religious values today runs the risk of being called 'divisive' or attacked as an enemy of pluralism.

A City University of New York study done in 1991 revealed that nearly 90% of the American people identify themselves religiously as Christians or Jews, while only 7.5 percent claim no religion.

America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world.

People of good character are not all going to come down on the same side of difficult political and social issues. Good people - people of character and moral literacy - can be conservative, and good people can be liberal. We must not permit our disputes over thorny political questions to obscure the obligation we have to offer instruction to all our young people in the area in which we have, as a society, reached a consensus: namely, on the importance of good character, and some of its pervasive particulars.

If there is one thing educators can agree on, it's this: children do better in school when their parents get involved in their learning.