Kati Haycock

President, The Education Trust

While achievement has gone up for other groups of students, we are not making the same kind of progress for our American Indian and Alaska Native students.

William E. White

Royce R. & Kathryn M. Baker Vice President Productions, Publications, and Learning Ventures for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

I am fed up with teacher-bashing. It seems everyone is willing to belittle teachers. But these same critics are not willing to step forward and do the job themselves.

John Thompson

Award-winning historian and inner-city teacher

Before choice, I would not have understood what it was like to teach a class where eight to ten kids had been traumatized so badly that their cognitive functions had been altered. After a decade of choice, that became my new normal.

Christopher Brauchli

Lawyer

Oklahoma and Tennessee's legislators' most recent attacks on evolution started in each state's legislative session in 2011 and were carried forward into this year's sessions.

John M. Eger

Van Deerlin Endowed Chair of Communications and Public Policy and Director of the Creative Economy Initiative, San Diego State University

Many people don't take the term "arts" seriously. It's soft, not muscular. But we now know a lot more about learning and know that "arts integration" works.

John Thompson

Award-winning historian and inner-city teacher

Most educators already know that we should be teaching analysis, synthesis, and problem-solving, so perhaps our experiment with graduation exams will prompt us to follow the path we always knew we should be taking.

C. M. Rubin

Blogger and author, 'The Real Alice in Wonderland'

What do we mean when we say that beyond skills and knowledge, an arts education better prepares students for the 21st century?