When a reporter from the magazine Education Week put together a profile on my involvement in the movement to better America’s schools, a detractor observed, “Nobody’s ever called her subtle.” And that’s just fine. I’m full-blooded Italian; we don’t do subtle.

For decades, I’ve been in the mix—as a student, as a parent, as a reformer, and sure, as an agitator—in the matters that most affect America and its future: how we prepare our youngest citizens for their futures. Everything depends on this. The nation’s economy and workforce, its culture and stewardship of its past, even the functionality of its democracy—these are the greatest stakes imaginable. Accordingly, there isn’t time for delicacy.