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Society is so divided in its perception of public school people. Most people who went to public school behave in the right way, but every now and then there will be someone who comes along and ruins it.

Basically the school system sets you up with what it wants to set you up with. They're really good at it. I think they're too good. Problem is, what they're doing is conditioning kids to merely accept the culture at hand. But the rebels won't accept it.

As the son of a union activist and a lifelong Democrat, I've always thought that privatizing our public schools is not the answer. We must strengthen public schools.

America's public schools have served their purpose. Free and compulsory education was good for a somewhat unpromising young nation.

The school system has become a part of this huge government machine, governed by people who aren't close to the situation. That's why I'm a Republican. I believe in small government.

Public schools are not simply being corporatized, they are also subjected increasingly to a militarizing logic that disciplines the bodies of young people, especially low income and poor minorities, and shapes their desires and identities in the service of military values and social relations.

Like its politicians and its war, society has the teenagers it deserves.

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

While the public school rewards failure by throwing more government money at failing school systems, the voucher system does the opposite.

Public schooling fosters our common identity as Americans sharing a land of diversity. It promotes the American ideal of opportunity for all, not just some. It cultivates the civic values of respecting individuals as well as collective responsibility.