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A very positive view of Teach for America and the ability of that organization to improve educational outcomes. George Will makes some bold claims and doesn't substantiate them. "Until recently...it seemed that we simply did not know how to teach children handicapped by poverty and its accompaniments - family disintegration and destructive community cultures. Now we know exactly what to do."

Clearly, another first is called for if we are ever to regain our educational standing in the world: A first step toward finally taking teaching seriously in America. Will our leaders be willing to take that step? Or will we devolve into a third class power because we have neglected our most important resource for creating a first-class system of education?

Because unions fundamentally fight for teachers' rights to have a say in what a democratic education in America looks like, I stand with teachers' unions.

I could not agree more with the sentiment of this piece. As someone who has chosen NOT to join the VEA, though- Lehmann is correct- I do not join because of HOW it is run, not because of what they are supposed to do. Parenting 101 would tell you that if parents are unable to provide for themselves, they cannot provide for a child- in airplanes you are supposed to put your own oxygen mask on first so you are able to take care of others around you- yet in education, we allow the "good of the children" to burn out or compromise teachers daily. I believe collective action is important, it is just not run the way I believe it could most effectively be run.

"For beyond the shrinkage of school curriculums to fit the narrow boundaries of annual tests, along with the disappearance of recess and play, research in poorer schools has uncovered another most tragic outcome to high stakes testing: the effective elimination of care as the ethos that has bound together teacher and child for longer than there have been schools in America."

Gives a detailed look at state budget cuts in education across the American map.

More on the Kahn Academy and its successes. Gates is now investing in this movement.