No One Is Mandating Merit Pay.

The Jobs Of The Future, As You Know So Well, Are Knowledge-based. You Need College-educated Folks To Do This Work. And So The Consequences For Our Country Are Absolutely Devastating If We Don't Start To Behave In Very Different Ways.

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.

If The Goal Is To Dramatically Improve College Completion Rates, Not College-going Rates By Itself But College Completion, It's Not Just A College Problem. We Need A Big Focus On Early Childhood Education. Our Early Childhood Education System Is Pretty Good In This Country. Not Enough Students Have Opportunity. And, Very Discouragingly, They Lose Their Advantage Because They Go To Poor Schools After That. So, Let's Focus On Our Babies.

Surveys Show That Many Talented And Committed Young People Are Reluctant To Enter Teaching For The Long Haul Because They Think The Profession Is Low-paying And Not Prestigious Enough.