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Providing intensive support and effective interventions for the lowest-performing schools.

First, every state should have a comprehensive data system that tracks student progress from one year to the next.

a class of test scores can tell whether a teacher is effective, and an entire state of test scores can tell whether a policy is working. When empirical data replace emotion as the basis for developing policy, America will be able to transform the quality of education into a world-class system of learning.

If a state needs educators to teach students who are gifted or disabled or learning to speak English, let's create the market that attracts their expertise.

A meaningful bump in pay -- $1,000 a month or more -- would provide an incentive for educators to teach tough subjects such as physics and trigonometry or to teach in schools with a high population of students living in poverty. Moreover, giving a bonus to teachers for every one of their students who pass an advanced placement test in science and math will create an incentive for success and generate American intellectual capital in critical fields. Third, low-performing schools must be fixed. It is morally wrong to consign students to schools that consistently fail to educate them. Let's help those schools be successful with whatever assistance it takes. Where schools don't improve, we believe parents should have the option of sending their children to public charter schools whose leadership has proved it can prepare students for the next grade and beyond.Finally, let's stop tinkering around the edges of reform and really revolutionize the way we deliver knowledge to students. Learning is no longer local, yet we still operate in a system ruled by traditional course work and antiquated textbooks. Our education system is an eight-track tape deck living in the high-speed digital age.

An online campus also would create an economic way to customize education for every child in America. Students wouldn't be limited by what was offered at their particular school. With the click of a mouse they could take Chinese at one virtual academy, geometry at another and 18th Century poetry at another. They could learn at their own pace, whether it is faster or slower than their peers.