Education is the most powerful tool countries have for boosting economic growth, increasing prosperity and forging more just, peaceful and equitable societies. Where educational deprivation exists, it breeds conflict and enables repression.

Standardised tests cannot capture all, but on the other hand, students who are not capable of doing well on standardised tests are not well-equipped to thrive in today's world and so it's important for teachers to ensure that students gain the foundation necessary to meet the baseline educational standards these tests represent.

I have not seen that standardised tests make the profession less attractive, though some principals respond to them in a way that drives the best teachers out of their schools (by over-emphasising test prep in the school curriculum for example). On the other hand, great teachers want benchmarks to measure progress and tests can help with that.

The evidence would suggest that there are some great alternative certification programmes and some lousy ones. There are some wonderful traditional education schools, and some that aren't so effective. What's important is less the pathway than the impact on students.

The most reliable way to be certain of their classroom impact is through independent studies conducted by third-party organisations which compare the student growth in our corps members' classrooms to that of other teachers in similar situations.

I often hear from new graduates that it's better to wait until you have more experience.... But I'm a big believer in the power of inexperience.... The world needs you before you stop asking naive questions and while you have the time to understand the true nature of the complex problems we face and take them on.

Inexperience is an asset. Embrace it.

When school district officials literally laughed at the notion that the Me Generation — this was the label for my generation — would jump at the chance to teach in urban and rural communities, their concerns, too, went unheard. My very greatest asset was that I simply did not understand what was impossible.

As a country [USA], we can attract more talented people to teaching by raising awareness of educational inequity and getting the public to understand from individual classrooms, schools, and cities that this is an issue that can be solved.