Harvard's 2015 Honorary-degree Recipients - Harvard Magazine

What is being asked today is the most radical request that has ever been made of American schools in our century: to bring all our children to a high level of academic skills. The schools’ business in the past was to bring some fraction of children to a high level of skills—but certainly not all. Schools were seen instead as developing the work habits of the male population who would take the unskilled jobs…and to prepare American children to be citizens of what was then a rather novel form of democratic government. …[W]hat is it we think these schools are supposed to be doing. Are they simply supposed to be assuring academic skills. If we focus exclusively on schools’ academic mission, then we lose their other mission. I think the criminal justice system has done things to children, the disabled, innocent people and others that are cruel, abusive, unjust and irresponsible. Our mistakes require the mercy and understanding of others, which we can't legitimately expect unless we offer the same to others. Source: harvardmagazine.com