What we know is the workplace is more demanding than ever before.

In Connecticut, my understanding, although I haven't seen the actual litigation, is that they want to measure every other year and not provide annual assessment as is required in the statute.

It's a hard process to navigate... to figure out where your kid ought to go to college.

And I think that we in America need to understand that many schools need improvement, and particularly with respect to how they're serving minority children.

We at the Department of Education are going to provide technical assistance; I've committed $14 million to show states how they might meet this more sophisticated approach.

Well, one of them is annual assessment in grades 3-8. It's integral to the implementation of everything.

We want to obviously foster a relationship that we're a partner with states; that we all share the same goals of closing the achievement gap, just as the Congress does; and that we're practical and sophisticated enough to understand what they're talking about.

But the other notion is, we also believe that those folks closest on the ground that we're holding accountable for the results can decide, and ought to evaluate which programs get results.

There's lots of institutions and lots of different cultures, and so that's the kind of thing that parents need to be able to evaluate, and students themselves, when they make a selection.

And I believe that public broadcasting has an important trust with the American people, it's an intimate medium of television, and that we can do reading and language development for young children without getting into human sexuality.

And I think that's righteous, I think that's what parents want to know. They want to know what's going right in the school, and what needs improvement, and that's what this law does.

I think it'd be useful for parents to know kind of what is the culture of an institution.

I mean, one thing I know about change is we are not going to close the achievement gap without educators.

I do think we know that a teacher who knows what he or she is doing, knows their subject matter, and knows how to impart knowledge to kids is a critical piece of closing the achievement gap.

Again, the truth of the matter is we haven't paid that much attention to high school accountability.

What we know is the workplace is more demanding than ever before.

My understanding is that Kansas, Massachusetts, they've been more pioneers on the special education side.

Higher education is confronting challenges, like the economy is, about the need for a higher number of more adequately trained, more highly educated citizenry.

The long and short of it is, we need more rigor in all kinds of programs.

We know that if we're going to remain economically competitive in the world, and viable as a civic democracy, that we're going to have to get more people educated to higher levels.

I think all kinds of parents are different in what they're seeking.

For too long, actually, we have either said you're this or that.

I always write my first draft in longhand, in lined notebooks. I move around the house, sitting where I like, and watch the words spool out in front of me, actually taking a lot of pleasure in the way they look in my strange handwriting on the page.

The only immorality is not to do what one has to do when one has to do it.

When you understand that life is a test you realize that nothing is insignificant in your life.

Whenever I look at pictures of horrific things that soldiers do or that have been done to soldiers I always feel sorry for everybody involved because politics throws them into these horrific situations where really it's just 18-year-old kids.

Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.

What was Bruce Lee like? How did you meet? What was it like to choreograph the fight scene in Rome with him? Did you spend much time together off-screen? Those are a small sampling of the inquiries I'm asked often, wherever I go around the world.

Israel is part of the free world led by the United States, no matter what.

A man never stands as tall as when he kneels to help a child.

At Walmart, we recognize the need to support the development of our nation's youth.

It takes all sorts of people to come together to fight tyranny. It's not about one race anymore.

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.

What's more awkward than doing a shower scene? Rehearsing a shower scene.

If I win seven tournaments in a row, I get so confident I'm in a cloud. A loss gets me eager again.

There's something real in women's intuition. It's an accurate signpost for decision making, but it usually bumps up against man's logic. So we have to put ego aside and listen to them.

I think Chris Weitz is an amazing director, and his sensibility - I wouldn't even know how to articulate it - it's just, he's a very sensitive, interesting guy.

I have some anger issues.

I loved September 12th. I loved the way - it's awful but, boy, did I love that day when we all came together. All the bickering stopped. All the partisan, cheap partisan warfare stopped.

Good Lord - if I couldn't multitask, I don't know what I'd do.

I don't know if a company can have a soul, but I like to think it can.

I never used to speak to the audience at all. I never really knew what to say onstage.

People who are isolated interest me, whether they isolate themselves or have been isolated by circumstances.

I wrote a lot of 'Red Queen' wrapped in a blanket, cramped up while watching the snow come down.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

I have always been a sucker for ballads, but you have to be careful these days, you can't overload people.