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The one thing we can do is invest in the quality of education, especially higher education.

The problem with K-12 education is socialism and the solution is capitalism.

Frankly, I'm not sure how far I would get if I attended public school today. It's not just that public schools aren't producing the results we want - it's that we're not giving them what they need to help students achieve at high levels. K-12 education in the United States is deeply antiquated.

I think higher ed in the U.S. is fairly healthy, and by global standards it dominates, and it makes people more productive. But a lot of our K-12 is a disaster. And the single most important reform would just be to fire the worst ten or 15 percent of teachers in the lot, and we would have massive improvements.

You cannot simply put more money into the same system and get better results, so we will need to reform and innovate in the delivery of education.

I think we spend too much on K-12 education a.k.a. teachers' salaries. It's the only industry where you never see any productivity increases.

The United States is the most innovative country in the world. But our leadership could slip away if we fail to properly fund primary, secondary and higher education.

In K-12, almost everybody goes to local schools. Universities are a bit different because kids actually do pick the university. The bizarre thing, though, is that the merit of university is actually how good the students going in are: the SAT scores of the kids going in.

I am old enough to remember when America's K-12 public schools were the best in the world. I am a proud graduate of them, and I credit much of my success to what I learned in Detroit Public Schools and at Michigan State University.

You can't have a sustainable US economy without a great education system. Teach students to do the job right. You don't have an innovative economy unless you have a great education.