What do you consider the purpose of formal (i.e., in-school) education?
How would you characterize your own experience of school systems, starting in elementary school and
going through to college or graduate school?
What would you have liked to see changed at each level?
How do you think the level of salaries teachers are paid affects the quality of education?
What would you consider a reasonable salary for teachers on the elementary, high school and college level?
How do you think teachers should be evaluated for hiring purposes and in their work once they are hired?
How do you think curricula should be created and evaluated?
What do you think is the ideal class size and why?
How do you think school systems should be funded?
Is there a better way to organize students for teaching purposes than by their age?
If so, what might this be?
Do you think it's a positive thing for parents to be very involved in their children's education?
If so how would you promote this involvement? If not, how would you discourage it?
What role could a school system play in helping children who are in severely dysfunctional families?
Do you think equality of education is an important goal for a democracy? To what extent do you think we have this in the United States? How might it be improved?
What role do you think technology can and should play in education?
If there are not enough truly talented teachers to go around do you think programs delivered by computer or video can adequately compensate for this? How?
What role do you think testing should play in education?
How can tests be designed to give teachers useful information and not humiliate or shame students but rather encourage them to look more deeply into subjects they haven't clearly understood?
If you were suddenly made principal of an elementary school how would you evaluate how well the school is doing and what changes might you make?
Can you do the same thought experiment for being principal of a middle school and high school and
president of a university?
How would you encourage people who have no children or whose children are long out of school to take an
interest in the school system?