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It's not that our high school system was not designed well, but that it was designed in 1906 when the country was just out of the industrial era. There hasn't been a substantial systemic change the way we do high school since then.

Today in America, we are trying to prepare students for a high tech world of constant change, but we are doing so by putting them through a school system designed in the early 20th Century that has not seen substantial change in 30 years.

If American schooling is inadequate now, just imagine how much more obsolete it will be when today's kindergarten students graduate from high school in just 12 years.

In my opinion, what changed the situation eventually - and, of course, it took a lot of time to change it, things like that don't change in a week or a fortnight - was the new educational system.

Before this government came to power, many failing schools were simply allowed to drift on in a pattern of continuing failure. The government is determined to break that pattern and is successfully doing so.

As somebody who visits countless schools, I see firsthand the dire situation our educational system faces.

Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, it's time for us to take a hard look at the separate and unequal conditions that still exist in our schools and our communities and rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the promise of equal opportunity for all.

School reform is not enough. The notion of schooling itself must be challenged.

We are now operating a school system in America that's more segregated than at any time since the death of Martin Luther King.