The goal of American education must be to provide more learning for more people. Accomplishing this objective will require formidable commitments of social will, educational expertise, and financial resources. Although there are many good schools in America, many others face many impediments in their efforts to educate children. Obstacles for children can be poverty, community disdain for education, violence, familial disorder, or an unhealthy environment. Obstacles for schools include community lassitude, inflexible bureaucracies, inadequate financial support, and overtired and underprepared students, teachers, and administrators. How these things came about, and what can be done about them are considered. Schools serving the poor and minorities in the United States typically have the least distinguished teachers, are the least adequate physically, and are the most encumbered by regulations. Society's sentiments, as expressed in education, have typically benefited the affluent and deprived the poor. Some successful schools have demonstrated the difference that school can make in the lives of the poor and minorities. Separate chapters draw on these experiences and define how families, the government, higher education, and business can work to overcome the shortcomings of American education. Schools must improve, but society must become more supportive of the child and the school in order for this improvement to happen. (Contains 128 endnotes.) (SLD)