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When kids start school, families often have little choice over where they can go. Sometimes, children are forced into a failing school simply because their parents live in a certain district, and that school is the only option.

It's critical that children spend time before they arrive in school in a warm, attractive and inclusive environment, where they can learn through play, master social skills and prepare for formal schooling.

We run courses for government school teachers on Sundays. These teachers pay for their own food and stay; the kind of commitment you find in these people is remarkable.

Teachers have the hardest and most important jobs in America. They're building our nation. And we should appreciate them, respect them, and pay them well.

Across the globe, disadvantaged children are not living up to their potential because if they attend school at all, the schools are usually not designed to meet their extra needs.

In some parts of the world, students are going to school every day. It's their normal life. But in other part of the world, we are starving for education... it's like a precious gift. It's like a diamond.

Schools are successful only insofar as they reduce the dependence of a child's opportunities upon his social origins.

Good schools should be left alone.

There will always be places in the world where good schools don't exist and good teachers don't want to go, not just in the developing world but in places of socioeconomic hardship.

Public school teachers enjoy a huge amount of job security, thanks to their powerful unions and inflexible work rules.