Eli Broad

Teach For America provides one of the most critical pipelines for bringing new talent into public education.

It's critical that states improve how teachers are trained, recruited, evaluated, compensated, advanced, and retained.

Managers are responsible for setting workplace policies under which teachers can succeed. Managers are responsible for negotiating contracts that create the conditions under which teachers can succeed.

I believe in two things: One, Andrew Carnegie said, 'He who dies with wealth dies in shame.' And someone once said, 'He who gives while he lives also knows where it goes.'

You don't support politicians in their elections if whoever's seeking money only has a goal to stay in office or get in office. You have to pick the people who are going to do the best job.

I've become convinced that Los Angeles is going to become the next contemporary art capital - no other city has more contemporary gallery space than Los Angeles. We've come into our own, finally.

I could live anywhere in the world I want. But Los Angeles is the place to live.

Los Angeles is such a great meritocracy. Where can someone with my background - don't have the right family background, the right religion, the right provenance or whatever you want to call it - I come here and I'm accepted. The city's been good to me. And I want to give back.

Frankly, I'm not sure how far I would get if I attended public school today. It's not just that public schools aren't producing the results we want - it's that we're not giving them what they need to help students achieve at high levels. K-12 education in the United States is deeply antiquated.

School boards are, for the most part,made up of political wannabes who see a board seat as a stepping stone for political office, or well-meaning parents who represent an ethnic group or geography, or have some other narrow interests. Few people on them understand what governance is about.

I am old enough to remember when America's K-12 public schools were the best in the world. I am a proud graduate of them, and I credit much of my success to what I learned in Detroit Public Schools and at Michigan State University.

As the son of a union activist and a lifelong Democrat, I've always thought that privatizing our public schools is not the answer. We must strengthen public schools.