“If poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works”

“We don't heal in isolation, but in community.”

“To do exciting, empowering research and leave it in academic journals and university libraries is like manufacturing unaffordable medicines for deadly diseases. We need to share our work in ways that people can assimilate, not in the private languages and forms of scholars...Those who are hungriest for what we dig up don't read scholarly journals and shouldn't have to. As historians we need to either be artists and community educations or find people who are and figure out how to collaborate with them. We can work with community groups to create original public history projects that really involved people. We can see to it that our work gets into at least the local popular culture through theater, murals, historical novels, posters, films, children's books, or a hundred other art forms. We can work with elementary and high school teachers to create curricula. Medicinal history is a form of healing and its purposes are conscious and overt.”

“Our schools will not improve if we continue to focus only on reading and mathematics while ignoring the other studies that are essential elements of a good education. Schools that expect nothing more of their students than mastery of basic skills will not produce graduates who are ready for college or the modern workplace.***Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure. The tests we have now provide useful information about students' progress in reading and mathematics, but they cannot measure what matters most in education....What is tested may ultimately be less important that what is untested...***Our schools will not improve if we continue to close neighborhood schools in the name of reform. Neighborhood schools are often the anchors of their communities, a steady presence that helps to cement the bond of community among neighbors.*** Our schools cannot improve if charter schools siphon away the most motivated students and their families in the poorest communities from the regular public schools.***Our schools will not improve if we continue to drive away experienced principals and replace them with neophytes who have taken a leadership training course but have little or no experience as teachers.***Our schools cannot be improved if we ignore the disadvantages associated with poverty that affect children's ability to learn. Children who have grown up in poverty need extra resources, including preschool and medical care.”

“The scientific community thrives on probabilities, working theories and fact-based hypothesis that have resulted in the advances we have made in fields such as medicine and technology. The Christian community thrives on miracles.”

“Sometimes we focus so much on what we don't have that we fail to see, appreciate, and use what we do have!”