Like the Roman god Janus, accountability has two faces. On the one side, critics are correct. Education from preschool through college certainly must improve to ensure that we remain competitive in the world market. Teachers who are licensed for our schools must possess the requisite skills to truly teach all students regardless of linguistic, racial, cultural, or socioeconomic differences. Those who prepare these teachers must possess similar skills, as well as a strong conceptual framework on which such learning and dispositions are based. Those who provide instructional support for teachers -- school leaders and school board members - must recommit to the ongoing professional development of teachers by ensuring adequate incentives and programs to encourage the refinement of pedagogical skills and updated knowledge. As is the case with any other profession, not only must continuing education units be required; they also must be supported in a milieu conducive to the learning and reflective of the valued and professional status that should accrue to teaching.

On the opposite side, those who would hold schools, teachers, and higher educators accountable for their products must assume responsibility beyond criticism and legislation. While criticism and legislation each has its place, there is ample evidence that neither has lasting value or generates change in and of itself. All Americans must assume responsibility for the actualization of American education from the time-honored vision of excellence: true equity and future-oriented skills based on requisite or fundamental learning. Choice, whether in the form of vouchers, magnets, charter schools, or some other expression of school difference, has its charm and reflects the marketplace as well as a version of democracy. However, it does not necessarily address either the educational needs of society or the hopes of those Americans who envision a truly democratic system of free public education for all. Choice is neither a panacea for nor the answer to the concerns that confront us in public education.

To paraphrase Marva Collins, we must work with a passion, with steeltrap determination; we cannot let our schools or our children fail. We are all citizens, and no matter the choice we make about the educational direction of our children, as members of a society built on both democracy and meritocracy, we must invest in the futures of all children. What we can do is decide to act and then act on our decisions. The actions that we might take will vary from individual to individual. However, it is safe to say that the steps to a new educational direction are fairly clear:

All Americans must assess what it is we wish to be and what is in place to enable our youth to lead us there as they assume the responsibilities of citizenship in adulthood.

For some, this assessment will lead to spending greater and more focused time with their children. If the data are correct, parents today spend less than seven minutes each day in quality activities and meaningful conversation with their children. Time spent with children by parents should not be focused on being just a friend but rather on character-building and teaching. If we need to hear things thirty-five times to master them, as advertisers demonstrate by the frequency of commercials, then reinforcing ethics and what is learned in school is an essential component of parent/child interactions. Such reinforcement demands a commitment of significant time and attention.

For those who are in education, a thorough self-examination of skills and needs is important. It is not enough to know only what we learned in school and how we were once taught to use it. It is also essential that we acquire and master new knowledge, model learning, and teach within the experience and styles of the learners who are in our care. We must remember the fire and excitement that brought each of us into teaching and convey that love of learning to our students. Just as it is true that tenure and rank in higher education do not entitle one to stop doing research, writing, teaching, and providing service, so too, the public or private school educator who has worked long enough to be "non-probationary" or who is vested in retirement is not freed of the responsibility to teach with a passion for excellence, mindful of the student and the needs of the society in which that student must live and work.

Businesses also have a stake in education, and they must support the needs of both students and teachers. For example, a medical center that hires high school science teachers in the summer not only enhances the education and skills of the teachers, but also adds a dimension of excitement and depth of knowledge to what teachers bring to the classroom when they return to it in the fall eager to share that excitement and new knowledge with their students. Businesses also can benefit education by providing release time for parents to attend conferences at schools, by providing volunteers in schools, by recognizing the efforts of employees who take the time to work with youth, and by allowing students to shadow and later receive employment opportunities.

All who have had the opportunity to attend public or private schools and/or institutions of higher education can provide monetary support for education. Many successful individuals support their medical, dental, and law schools with financial contributions. Such support is appropriate and understandable. However, each lawyer, doctor, engineer, technician, or other professional also has been influenced by many educators. Perhaps, then, it is time to support educators and those who prepare them as well as professional schools and colleges. Although no public or private school is likely to turn down donation of property such as a computer or printer, how nice it would be if that which is donated were new and cutting edge rather than outdated and at the point of replacement in the business.

If indeed education is a national priority as suggested by Secretary Riley, then it must receive more than dollars, criticism, and externally imposed standards. Education must be the focus of the same types of effort that have been expended historically to put a man on the moon, to save social security, and to stop injustices in other nations. For us to do less may be the ultimate injustice to our youth and to the future of the nation. As has often been noted, the real issue with social security is whether or not those who will be the workers of the next generation will have the skills, knowledge, and earning potential to support those of the "boomer generation" who will retire. Not only must the conversation about education be ongoing and thoughtful, but also all citizens must give a full measure of commitment to all schools and students: expecting the best, tolerating no less than excellence, and engaging themselves in that effort.

When we ask the question, who will help us change the course of American education and provide for our future as individuals and as a nation, the answer is in the mirror. We cannot afford to gaze in another direction. We each must shoulder the educational responsibility ourselves in our homes, streets, churches, businesses, and schools. If each American does not do so, surely no one else will.

Many programs are trying to effect educational reform from the outside in, but the greatest immediate power we have is to work for reform from the inside out. Ultimately, human wholeness does not come from changes to our institutions: it comes from the reformation of our hearts.