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All I suggest is to make K-12 like higher education. Higher education in the United States is the best in the world because these institutions compete with each other for your tuition dollar. Let's just bring competition to public education.

Indeed, the study of universities and the great men and women who have attended them leads me to think that the best of these schools are characterized not so much by what they teach and how they teach it but by the extent they provide opportunities and encouragement for students to teach themselves.

We all want merit to mean something, and we all may be tempted to reduce that meaning to something measurable and concrete like an SAT score. The reality, though, is that who deserves entry into an institution depends on what the institution exists to do.

Good schools should be left alone.

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.

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.

Well, we have to provide the world's best schools. We certainly don't have them, but that's our objective.

The SAT plays an important role in helping admissions officers around the country sort out students, well-deserving students from 20,000 high schools that have different curriculums, different grading standards, and different ability to help students get ready for college.

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the rest of the Ivy League are worthy institutions, to be sure, but they're not known for educating large numbers of poor young people.

Many more schools can be outstanding.