The secretary of education does not work for the education establishment. The secretary works for the American people.

What you've got here is really a case of journalists making fun of people who believe in God and the devil.

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.

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

All real education is the architecture of the soul.

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.