America’s Faith in Schooling

Just see wherever we peer into the first tiny springs of the national life, how this true panacea for all of the ills of the body politic bubbles forth—education, education, education. Andrew Carnegie, 1886[i] School houses do not teach themselves – piles of brick and mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American. W.E.B. DuBois, 1903[ii] At the desk where I sit in Washington, I have learned one great truth: The answer for all our national problems comes down to one single word: education President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964[iii] [E]ducation is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making…