Thucydides the Buff Historian

(quoting Pericles)
Our constitution is called a
Democracy
democracy because power
Depends on Equal Access is in the hands not of a
To Great Teaching minority but of the whole
people. . . .

Rich Haglund,
Haglund, TN SBE No one, so long as he has it in
him to be of service to the
2007 ELA Conference
state, is kept in political
obscurity because of poverty. 2
Rich Haglund, TN State Board of Education SIUC October 2007

Some Irish Rockers

and an American Geek
Justice Stephen “Yes I’m really smart” Breyer
Where you live should not decide
[T]he people, and their
representatives, must have the
Whether you live or whether you die
capacity to exercise their democratic - U2, Crumbs from Your Table, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
responsibilities. They should possess
the tools, such as information and
education, necessary to participate All lives—no matter where they are
and to govern effectively. . . . being led—have equal value.
[T]he Constitution is not a document
designed to solve the problems of a To whom much is given,
community at any level—local, state, or
national. Rather it is a document that trusts much is expected.
people to solve those problems themselves. - Gates Foundation
3 4

The Student Pipeline

100%
A stable and democratic society is
Percentage of 9th grade students

United States

impossible without widespread

70%
Tennessee
75% 63%

50% 39% 39%

acceptance of some common set
25%
27% 27%
18% 17%
of values and without a minimum
degree of literacy and knowledge
on the part of citizens.
0%
Graduate high Start college Persist 2nd year Earn degree
school - Milton Friedman
Source: Student Pipeline 2004, unpublished data from the National Center for Higher Education Management
Systems, October 2006. Data are estimates of pipeline progress rather than actual cohort.
5 6

1
 We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.
7 8

“When I’d get an A on a test,

I’d get this good feeling about
all the things I could be.”
- “Chris Gardner” – The Pursuit of Happyness

9 10

We have entered an era in which “comfort

with ideas and abstractions is the passport
to a good job, in which creativity and
innovation are the key to the good life”
and in which the constant ability to learn
how to learn will be the only security you
[or your children or grandchildren] have.
--Thomas L. Friedman quoting Marc Tucker, NCEE

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