 I'm a product of public education. I went to St. Louis Park High School, junior high, grade schools, a public school in the suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the 1950s. And to me, public education is the backbone of our democracy. It's the place where we learn about the values that are shared values that keep this country together. There are lots of forces, particularly now, that are at work trying to tear the country apart and trying to undermine the shared values that are, again, the backbone of this country. Public education, universal public education, is, in my mind, the key, the glue that keeps the country together. The teacher that was most formative to me in my years in high school was my 11th grade humanities teacher. His name was Mr. Lagering. And it was the first moment, his class, his class was based on reading one of the sets of the great books, and then just talking about the philosophical, political, intellectual issues that were raised by Plato, Socrates, whoever we were reading at the time, and then debating it. And that was the first time in my educational experience that I saw school, I saw education as something other than just learning the subject matter, but rather being about thinking and thinking critically and forming opinions about important issues. To me, the promise of public education is exactly that. It is a place where students can learn and learn to be good mathematicians and can learn to be good scientists, but also can learn critical thinking. To me, the promise of public education, the promise that has to be kept, is the promise to continue to provide that kind of experience and exposure to young kids who are ultimately going to grow up and to be the voters and the leaders of this country in the future.