WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Colorado Gov. Ritter on Race to Top

It was like the Olympic Games, and we were an American skater with a Soviet judge from the 1980s,” (NYT)

Joel Shatzky: Educating for Democracy

Henry Ford explained that he gave his employees high wages so that they could afford to buy his products; Wal-mart reverses the process by paying such low wages that its employees can only afford to buy its products. (Huffington)

Howard Blume: An L.A. high school struggles to turn around

Last month, the Los Angeles Board of Education could have turned over the job of improving Jefferson to an outside operator. Instead, it chose a plan created by Jefferson's teachers. With new authority, staffers at Jefferson have taken on the crucial test of whether they can fix one of the most historically troubled, low-achieving campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District. (L.A. Times)