Tests that sugar-coat the truth only set up our kids to fail in worse ways down the road.
Throughout history, when societies have been faced with big challenges, they've put their best people on them. During the Space Race, American and Russian scientists, engineers, astronauts and cosmonauts pushed the bounds of what was possible and landed men on the moon.
Charter laws do something really important. They give educators the freedom and flexibility that they need to attain results. But we also have to invest a lot in the leadership pipeline to take advantage of that freedom and flexibility.
School boards can be a steppingstone to higher forms of political leadership.
Where educational deprivation exists, it breeds conflict and enables repression.
As a senior at Princeton, I felt like the whole world was open to me. In our country, that's not a given. We aspire to be a place of equal opportunity, and yet where you're born determines your prospects.
It's possible to train great people, but a person with great training who doesn't have certain characteristics is only going to go so far.
I usually don't really have breakfast.
I myself was completely torn by the decision to start Teach For America. There was a voice in my head telling me not to do it - to take a more normal path. I did have one thing going for me, which was that I had been rejected from all the other jobs I'd applied to.
Ending educational inequality is going to require systemic change and a long-term, sustained effort. There are no shortcuts and no silver bullets.
We aspire to be equal opportunity, but all across the country where a student is born, their race, their class affect where they end up.
It gets to whether we're a teacher-education model or a movement for social justice. I would say we're about the latter.
Teach for America recruits top recent college grads, young professionals, people we believe are the U.S.'s most promising future leaders, and asks them to commit two years to teach in high-need urban and rural communities.
We believe strongly in transparency and accountability, which is why Teach For America encourages rigorous independent evaluations of our program. Our mission is too important to operate in any other way.
The mission that unites all of the programs of the Teach For All global network is that of cultivating the leadership capacity critical to ultimately ensuring educational opportunity for all.
I think the way to understand Teach for America is as a leadership development program.
We must broaden the definition of who our neighbors are, and extend the boundaries of our interest and empathy.
Common Core results finally give families an accurate barometer of whether our kids are mastering the skills they need to succeed in a knowledge-based global economy, early enough that we can intervene.
Teach For America would not be able to continue recruiting and developing an ever-more diverse and impactful group of corps members and alumni if the nation's leading colleges become even less diverse.
Few things are more important to our country's future than recruiting and keeping great teachers in our schools.
