My working life has been propelled by a three connecting ideas. I get asked:  What keeps you going, doing the work you do year and year.  And sometimes I am stuck for an answer - until I dredge my mind deep enough to remember what got me started.  It's then I realize that what got me started continues to keep me going. 

Maybe it's because the work isn't finished, maybe it's because of the disappointments and obstacles and barriers that keep the work from being finished. 

The ideas that keep me going - as simply as I can say them are these:

1. The home is a very important place in the education of kids.  The question I continue to ask myself and for which I develop answers is this:  what is it that every parent, rich or poor, can do, should do to ensure that children have the greatest potential to achieve in and out of school.

2. To become educated, students need the basics and more.  The question is:  What is it that children really need to learn?  I believe and have reason to believe that it’s more than basics.  I believe it takes what I call MegaSkills®.  Yet, by any other name, it takes the inner engines of learning that keeps us learning and wanting to know more…well beyond what is tested and test-able.

3. For teachers to be successful, parents and students need to know what schools can really be held accountable for.  The question for my work is how to build responsible and positive school/home/community partnerships.   Teachers need to know how to reach families, and families know how to support the work of the schools.

I wish I could say that I have put these ideas across completely…but this hasn't happened yet.  I haven't stopped believing in these ideas and actually I am more confirmed in them than ever.  That's why I keep on going.  And that's why you keep on going.  We all want to make that special difference - and it's what we do.