Almost 24 Million Children - One In

I Believe That Education Is The Civil Rights Issue Of Our Generation. And If You Care About Promoting Opportunity And Reducing Inequality, The Classroom Is The Place To Start. Great Teaching Is About So Much More Than Education; It Is A Daily Fight For Social Justice.

Whether You Look At These Recent Pisa Results, Which We Are Mediocre At Best, Whether You Look At A 25 Percent Dropout Rate In This Country, Whether You Look At, In One Generation, We're Not Doing What We Need To Be Doing To Keep America Great.

I Just Think We Can't Do Enough Of This [student Exchanges]... And When You Get Young Children Traveling Internationally, I Think They Come Back Different People. And You Can't Put A Price Tag - You Can't Put A Value On That.

We Need To Lengthen The School Day. We Need To Lengthen The School Year. Our Calendar Is Based Upon The Agrarian Economy. Children In India And China Are Going To School 25, 30, 35 More Days A Year. They're Just Working Harder Than Us. So, We Need More Time, Particularly For Disadvantaged Children, Who Aren't Getting Those Supports At Home.

Other Countries Have Outeducated Us. They Have Made This A Priority. And A Big Part Of What I'm Trying To Do, Frankly, Is Raise The Profile Of Education And Get America To Wake Up.