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Americanism demands loyalty to the teacher and respect for his lesson.

Most teachers still say they love teaching though they wouldn't mind a little more respect for their challenging work and a little less blame for America's educational shortcomings.

Our experience at Teach For America has been that the more people understand educational inequity, the more they want to do something about it.

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.

Our teachers at the public school level are the most underpaid for the importance of their job in America.

The biggest barrier we've seen to student progress is this: School policies and practices often prevent good teachers from doing great work and even dissuade some talented Americans from entering the profession. This needs to change.

The countries who do the best in international comparisons, whether it's Finland or Japan, Denmark or Singapore, do well because they have professional teachers who are respected, and they also have family and community which support learning.

Americans need to educate themselves, from elementary school onward, about what their country has done abroad. And they need to play a more active role in ensuring that what the United States does abroad is not merely in keeping with a foreign policy elite's sense of realpolitik but also with the American public's own sense of American values.

I'd rather see the United States as a beacon of good work and good citizenship, rather than as #1 on some international educational measurement.

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.