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I am confident that the vast majority of teachers will work with us towards achieving that goal.

To get enough of the teachers we need, teaching has to be a great job where talented people are supported and rewarded.

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

I do think we know that a teacher who knows what he or she is doing, knows their subject matter, and knows how to impart knowledge to kids is a critical piece of closing the achievement gap.

Our teachers are operating just as effective leaders in the business world do. They set a vision that most people think is crazy. They convince the kids why it's important to accomplish the goal. And they are totally relentless.

If we could reach the point where many of our nation's future leaders know what teachers know after teaching successfully in our highest-need schools, we would have a very different situation.

Very often we developed a better grasp of the subjects than the over worked teachers.

Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the 'naturals', the ones who somehow know how to teach.

Teachers are always trying to inspire people to do better, to learn, to grow. That's what we do, and we're proud of the success we've had here doing that, and it's something we'll certainly continue to do.

If teaching isn't rewarding and challenging, we're going to continue to lose our best teachers to work in other fields.