As the ratings go up, so does advertising revenue.

Any time you challenge a big powerful person or special interest, there's going to be blowback.

Lester is the Rock of Gibraltar. Nothing can rattle him. I am not. I was always flying off the handle about things. And the one person who could calm me down and make me realize that none of this silliness mattered was Lester Holt.

People say, 'Are you going to be beating up one side or the other side?' It's everybody. It's the entire education establishment that is in power.

It comes down to what your priorities are, and if public education is about kids, then every decision we make should be focused on the question of 'Is this good for a child?' And that should be the driving focus and the priority when we decide what our policies should be and what our laws should be.

I had a moment where I left journalism, and I started getting interested in this issue and writing about it, where I felt there was a right side and a wrong side around a lot of these issues relating to education.

Whenever someone says to me, 'Are you for or against Common Core,' the first question I ask is, 'What do you think Common Core is?' You will get a different answer from every single person. You will literally get a different answer.

To some people, Common Core means what it actually is, which is a set of standards. That's not necessarily most people. To other people, Common Core is a new curriculum that's been implemented at their school that they don't understand. It's applying new teaching tools.

Common Core isn't a test, but for some people it is, because they don't like the testing piece of it.

The thing that bothers me about journalism is the false equivalency we sometimes place on certain issues.

It's better to be honest about your opinions than to pretend you don't have them.

I know people talk about poverty and other factors, but there is very little I can do to ensure that a child has a stable two-parent home. But what if we can give them a shot in the classroom with a stable, high-standards environment?

I didn't get interested in education until I had kids.

I don't know if a government bailout will rescue America's auto industry, but I do know that if there is a bailout, it better come with a big, bright stop sign and lots of strings attached.

It has seemed, at times, like American carmakers think car buyers are so blindly loyal that they will keep coming back - despite the sticker shock - for crummy cars that guzzle gas, fall apart too soon, and cost too much to repair.

Let's just start with the word 'diva.' It is obviously a sexist slight - a term that is only applied to women, almost always in a derogatory way. It's usually applied to women who are viewed as overly ambitious. It is applied to demanding women, to women who follow their own path.

We are not yet a society free of sexism, and this will continue to be an issue for all women candidates.

Bipartisanship is really tough to achieve when everyone on both sides is left with a bad, bad taste in their mouths.

Women get scrutinized based on appearance far more than men. And look, I speak from experience here. When I wear a bad outfit on the air, I get viewer e-mail complaining about it. A lot of e-mail. Seriously.

When Wolf Blitzer wears a not-so-great tie, how much e-mail do you think he gets? My point is, for women, unfortunately, appearance is part of the job.

I myself have raised plenty of questions about Sarah Palin, much to the annoyance of the McCain campaign. But those questions have been about her qualifications and experience, never her appearance.

If you live in the overlapping world of politics and media, as I am learning, anything less than full transparency can potentially do you in.

After a 15-year career in television news, sometimes spent biting my tongue in the name of objectivity and balance, I retired to raise our two small children.

I have been fortunate that publications like the 'New York Times' and 'The Wall Street Journal' have allowed me to share some of my opinions with a wider audience.

'Morning Joe' host Mika Brzezinski's personal life is a minefield. Her father is Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, and while one brother is an Obama appointee, the other advises Romney.

By resisting almost any change aimed at improving our public schools, teachers' unions have become a ripe target for reformers across the ideological spectrum.

Sometimes, in the midst of a tragedy like the Newton massacre, we witness incredible acts of valor, tenderness, grace, and decency. We saw it from Sandy Hook Elementary School's teachers, students, and parents, as well as from their community and country. The outpouring of sympathy and help has been touching and, at times, inspiring.

Heartless zealotry, whether from the religious right or from the teachers' union on the left, is always troubling.

Mr. Obama is particularly well positioned to challenge Hollywood because of his special relationship with the media world's elites. They might be more likely to heed criticism coming from Mr. Obama than from any other president or member of Congress.

Parents should be allowed to choose which cable or satellite channels - sources of the most extreme content - come into their homes.

As anyone who has recently seen PG-13 movies knows, the level of violence in them has increased to the point of making the Motion Picture Association of America's voluntary rating system meaningless.

The president has been more than willing to challenge the National Rifle Association, but that is like a Republican president standing up to labor unions - not a move that risks anything with his core supporters. Mr. Obama could show some real bravery by taking on Hollywood.

What is happening with automation and globalization, that's not going away.

The consequences of substandard teaching go far beyond whether college or a good job is in reach. They affect earning potential, with implications throughout a person's life.

Our education system is not preparing young people for the world they will face.

The government sets targets for increased four-year high school graduation rates as part of its agenda for improving Americans' health.

The protests and pain over the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown had me wondering if we can ever experience the world as others do. For no matter how disputed the circumstances of both cases, many people see what happened in black and white.

I was born and raised in Louisiana - a small town called Ferriday, north of Baton Rouge.

My favorite stories are about kids who refuse to give up; their homes and schools may have been destroyed; they've probably had to rely on themselves more than a lot of adults do, and they've resisted the many bad alternatives that city life offers to poor teens.

While the protection of speech is at the bedrock of our democracy, it's critical as a nation that we exercise our right every day - and that includes embracing and engaging with those we may not agree with.

Voters have demonstrated time and again that candidates who buck the teachers' union are rewarded.

Perhaps there is no greater evidence that the teachers' union has swung too far out of the mainstream that they both have been a target of near-constant criticism from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

More and more parents and voters have rejected the teachers' union antiquated, top down, one-size-fits-all approach to education and continue to elect candidates who embrace reform that celebrates students and empowers parents.

In 'The Founders,' his new book about top charter schools, Richard Whitmire traces both the 'revolution' these schools brought about in many American cities as well as a parallel phenomenon, 'the charter pushback campaigns.'

Charter opponents often try to delegitimize strong testing results like those in Boston by attributing them to excessive test prep - as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio did recently.

If Boston charters can be stymied despite their extraordinary success, charters anywhere can be stopped.

It is unimaginable that anyone, right or left, can aspire to be president without having thought about this. Every candidate has the stage; the Republicans have used it to fuss unproductively over the Common Core. The Democrats have all but refused to speak.

Education has not traditionally been a large concern in presidential elections, presumably because the president does not run schools.

As David Cameron realizes, we do not have time for the tweaks and increments favored by institutions built to resist change.

Our educational establishment is failing; it is past time for courage, honesty, and action commensurate with the need, particularly here in the United States.