The founders of the United States envisioned education as providing for all citizens the necessary apprenticeship in the understanding and practice of democracy. To make democracy safe there must be universal schooling; to make schooling safe for education there must be democracy. But since the founding of the country, the study and practice of democracy in American schools has weakened. The authors advocate a return to the primary purpose of education and ensure that it is indeed for everyone. The agenda for education proposed by the authors is more than an effort to revitalize a civics curriculum. It is about restoring a shared humanity to the educational process. It is about the need to make caring, compassion, freedom, dignity, and responsibility central to the mission of schooling. It is about placing power and responsibility, a concept more demanding than accountability, in the hands of those who need and deserve it. It is about taking the idea of excellence seriously. It is about taking democracy seriously and having real faith in real people to do what is right, just, and honorable. Following a preface, contents of the book include: (1) Schooling for Everyone; (2) Agenda for Education in a Democracy; (3) The Context of Schooling in a Democracy; (4) An Essential Narrative for Schooling; (5) Democracy, Education, and the Human Conversation; (6) Renewal; (7) Leadership for Educational Renewal; and (8) Experiencing the Agenda. Notes, appendix and index conclude the book.