Public Education as the Great Equity Equalizer

It has the potential to be a great equity equalizer, ensuring that all kids in America have an equal shot at success and a productive life. Because public education involves all kids, it has an opportunity to promote great diversity not only in the composition of its students but also in getting kids exposed to a wide array of different experiences, especially when schools throw open their classroom doors to learning about the world.

 How a Democratic Government Serves the People

In our democracy, government is not some make believe thing that has an independent will of its own. In our democracy, government is just how we describe all of the things that “we the people” have already decided to do together. It is not complicated. Our government has three basic functions: provide for the national defense; put in place rules of the road, such as speed limits, and bank regulations that are fair and transparent; and build the things together that none of us can build alone...

 Skepticism and Wonder.

Both scepticism and wonder are skills that need honing and practice. Their harmonious marriage within the mind of every schoolchild ought to be a principal goal of public education. I'd love to see such a domestic felicity portrayed in the media, television especially: a community of people really working the mix - full of wonder, generously open to every notion, dismissing nothing except for good reason, but at the same time, and as second nature, demanding stringent standards of evidence; a...