Isn't it amazing that at just the moment in history that the private sector has demonstrated a combination of appalling ignorance and incompetence—to the detriment of billions of ordinary people—they've managed to use their monstrous profits to shift the argument to the sins of the public sector?

Now is a time to speak and act. Now is a time to think about how we will one day be judged. Not by test scores, not by data, but by the consequences of our actions.

Dear Diane, Yes, yes to your declaration of "where we stand" on Tuesday. I can quibble with a word here and there—a "can't" vs. a "shouldn't," and an overly enthusiastic endorsement of the schools of yesterday which so appalled me when I started teaching in 1962. It's wise to remember past achievements, but the pre-war schools of America also played a role in the sorrier part of our national history. I'm a revolutionary in spirit—this cannot continue! But I'm a "reformist" in practice since it is, in fact, the fastest way to get to where I want to ...

I will be marching with the Save Our Schools coalition of teachers and parents on July 30 in Washington, D.C. I know you will be, too. I hope we are joined by many thousands of concerned citizens who want to save our schools from the bad ideas and bad policies now harming them.

We can't overcome the past until we make radical changes in the way too many Americans are forced to live, as well as in our ways of using school.