Mike Rose points out that this is a crucial moment in the history of education in the United States. On one hand, Americans see a rhetoric of College for All, and pressure to get more racial minorities and low-income students into higher education, while the high school dropout rate stays stubbornly high near 30%. There is another rhetoric, about the importance of education for national growth and competitiveness, while states are cutting back funding for education at every turn. Civic life has degenerated into a stalemate between two political parties while the civic role of schooling--its historical role--has dwindled under the pressure of vocationalism, of viewing schooling primarily as a vehicle for individual hopes of getting ahead. The power of Mike Rose's work, and of his AERA presidential address, is that he gives some alternative ways of thinking about schooling--ways of seeing more powerful forms of schooling that rise above the narrow educational divisions people have created, that move beyond self-interest. In particular, his presidential address provides a vision of two changes--eroding the boundary between academic and vocational education, and moving past the dreadful teaching that dominates remedial education. On both these fronts the author argues that there's more good news out there than most people realize. To confront the academic-vocational divide, at the high school level there has been a movement to develop multiple "pathways," which look somewhat like majors in colleges--course sequences arranged around a broadly occupational theme like business, or health professions, or manufacturing technologies. Whether the approach of multiple pathways can in the end displace or coexist with the conventional high school remains to be seen, but it is a strong competitor that avoids the academic-vocational divide. This author discusses the process of innovation that starts with the practices of individual instructors. He asserts that Mike Rose has done as much as anyone to uncover the hidden assumptions underlying America's educational system and to highlight the individuals who have developed alternative visions.