LESSONS FOR THE DISTRICT

If you have, as you do in the District, a growing professional class, anything you can do to persuade those parents to keep their kids in the public schools is going to help everybody. Because those parents can be great advocates.

Colin Diver, president, Reed College, Portland, Ore.

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The best way to reform the D.C. public schools is to focus on the fundamentals of education: excellent teachers, experienced principals, manageable class sizes, a solid curriculum and modern facilities. If these fundamentals are missing, then no rearrangement of the structure or control of the school system will make a difference.

Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education