Thought for the day—on education

Great post on what's going on in the perennial "education wars" on the Curmudgucation blog. The penultimate paragraph is a good riff on a (misattributed) quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville:

A nation is great because its people—its persons—have the chance to become great. Not just the ones who believe The Right Thing, not just the ones who come from The Right Background. Education is not a commodity sold to parents, but a public good and a societal responsibility shared by us all because we all have to share in the results. That's the promise of public education that I believe in and that I will continue to argue for—that it is a debt we owe to every young human in this country to provide each and every one with a free quality education that empowers them and builds a better nation for all of us (not just the fortunate few).