“Education is the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a bucket.” – William Butler Yeats. I couldn’t agree more. As the parents of a public school student, nothing is more important to Mara and me than making sure all Alaska children receive a good education. I will work to make sure Washington supports the right changes to our schools, rather than getting in the way of progress.

I agree with the poet Yeats – ‘education is about the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a bucket.’ Our educational system should cultivate critical thinking, empathy and compassion, and creativity and imagination. No Child Left Behind is the wrong approach because it focuses too much on standardized testing and I’ve never met a standardized kid.