Includes bibliographical references and index.

Lies, lies everywhere
If we build it, they will come
"The number is zero-point-two"
The consortium
"We need the carrot"
Blue, one red
Strange bedfellows
Twenty-five pounds of apples and three pounds of cheese
"We matter!"
How schools work

Drawing on nearly three decades in education--from his mother's after-school program on Chicago's South Side to his tenure as secretary of education in Washington, DC--this volume follows Arne Duncan as he takes on gangbangers in Chicago housing projects, parents who call him racist, teachers who insist they can't help poor kids, unions that refuse to modernize, Tea Partiers who call him an autocrat, affluent white progressive moms who hate yearly tests, and even the NRA, which once labeled Arne the "most extreme anti-gun member of President Obama's Cabinet." Duncan exposes the lies that have caused American kids to fall behind their international peers, from early childhood all the way to college. But he also identifies what really does make a school work, emboldening parents, teachers, voters, and even students to demand more of our public schools. --Adapted from publisher description