In his recent piece in the New Yorker ("Most Likely to Succeed," December 15), Malcolm Gladwell likens finding good teachers for America's schools to the "quarterback problem" that pro football teams have in predicting which star college player will make it in the NFL.

Yes, I know it seems...

Obama's choice for Secretary of Education will be important. For the first time since the early 1970s, we may have an opportunity to improve the educational system where it is now least effective, in large urban and poor rural and semi-rural school districts.

Obama knows this. His campaign platform...

The historic 2008 presidential election is over. It brings the possibilities of enormous change, not just because the next administration will be run by Barack Obama instead of George Bush, but in longer term political realignments.

The main casualty is the Republican Party. The Party unraveled politically mainly because...

Stanford University's Linda Darling Hammond and New Leaders for New Schools' Jon Schnur, two of Barack Obama's main education advisors, wanted me to share their view on the importance of Obama's education plan for America's economic future. Here it is.

Yes, we have to respond to the economic crisis. But...

Dear Senator McCain:

Education policy finally played in the campaign this past week. You exchanged views on education with Senator Obama in the Third Debate, and your surrogate, Lisa Graham Keegan, had a wide-ranging education discussion with Linda Darling Hammond, Obama's surrogate, at New York's Columbia University.

But to tell...

True, we thought the American people elect presidents based on how they "connect" with the candidates. But our epic financial crisis has changed all that. The snap polls after Friday's Presidential debate suggest that this time, political economics are trumping personal connection.

Five weeks before a crucial presidential election,...

While you're more apt to see this year's presidential candidates verbally jousting on the economy, Iraq, and the war on terror, less sexy, non headline-grabbing issues like national education policy could ultimately have as profound a long-run impact on our country. After eight years, the report card on No...

Sylvia came to Miami from Cuba in the early 1960s, when she was just eight years old. For the past decade, she has been helping resettle Cuban families who arrive from the island to Miami. We met at a seminar of Cuban-American academics in May, in a session discussing economic...

Who would have thought that 2008 would be a defining moment in our nation's history? Democrats divided almost equally between two barrier-breaking candidates, but at the end of the day, we nominated an African-American rather than a woman for President of the United States. Is it surprising that his race...