First and foremost, teachers have a professional and moral responsibility to do everything in their power to ensure that each and every one of their students is doing his or her best. Teachers that unionize to help students learn, improve faculty and staff collaboration and take other steps to ensure that their students are thriving academically and socially should be fully supported. Teachers who seek to unionize to protect their jobs without being held accountable to the highest ... More »

Thousands of poor. talented and intelligent high school students are excluded from college every due to their family's financial resources and a shortage of scholarships to support them in college. Furthermore, Mr. Mathew's premise that a scholarship is the key to college admission for poverty-stricken young scholars ignores the enormous social and cultural challenges students face in making a successful transition from their local communities to a college setting.

President Obama and Secretary Duncan are promoting desperately needed education reform by demanding that states abandon failed policies and implement innovative and successful strategies in exchange for federal investment. Obama's bold actions and leadership are essential, but not sufficient, to fix our broken education system. We need leaders and teachers with the same passion, innovation and boldness to step up to the plate and change the way we do business in education. We need to ... More »

Obama's emphasis on the need for African leaders and people to take action to address African problems, build their economies and infrastructure, expand educational opportunities, etc. is precisely the kind of international leadership Africa needs.