Aboard a flight to Boston I finally had a chance to read an article in The Atlantic (June 2011) by Joel Klein, CEO of the Educational Division at News Corporation.  Klein reflects on his eight years as chancellor of the New York City school system.

A day later I attended the robing ceremony for the 2011 doctoral candidates at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  A faculty member spoke about each candidate’s inspiring life and incisive work.  I knew that similar ceremonies were occurring at many other prestigious institutions throughout the spring across the United States, all producing doctoral candidates who had been asking, “Why is this or that so in education, and how can it be changed?”

Together, the reading and robing confirmed my suspicion that our country has the ideas and idealism, the data and research capacity, and the energy and passion to solve every problem that besets education in this nation.  What is lacking – and lacking profoundly – is the political power to change what needs to be changed.  The political savvy to overcome entrenched special interests that allowed the decline and the over-simplified ideologies that have accelerated the demise of public education in America.

The health of our nation will be found in the health of our neighborhood communities, and their health is inseparable from strong local schools.  These schools do not serve our communities, nation or world well if they are merely renamed, reorganized to copy other countries, or to resegregate this country.  These schools do not serve us well if they are forced to focus on standardized test scores more than complicated, comprehensive learning.

Educating Americans from birth through their working years is the difficult answer to many other problems that face this country.  There is no higher priority.