If you hear that a thousand times, you begin to get it. Only 20 percent of our flights don't make it. Under those conditions there would be no air travel in the United States. No one would get on a flight. And yet in education we are submitting our children to odds very similar to those.
Most American children get through reasonably good schools in reasonably good shape.
And in a sense, their educational flights went down, but because they went down quietly, because they went down over a period of years instead of one terrible, awful moment, because, as Howard said this morning, their parents may lack the power to effectively complain, and because children themselves can't really complain, for all these reasons, we let this go on. And we let not thousands but more than 10 million of our children start their lives with less than they deserve. Well, let me start with this. Number one an inability to invest in change. It s not that we don't spend a lot on our schools.