In the press of daily work demands, it is difficult to think much beyond the next deadline or due date. But that is exactly what I am going to ask you to do.

I would like for you to reflect for a moment on the broader landscape of education and the promise and perils it holds. At the national level, we see key pieces of legislation such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the Perkins Act failing to generate sufficient consensus for reauthorization. Meanwhile, policymakers nationally and across states are rethinking major initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and the Common Core State Standards. Even teacher training programs are being challenged with demands for increased rigor. It appears we are in a period of uncertainty.

Are we at a watershed moment in the history of U.S. education? Perhaps we are. If so, educators--teachers to state superintendents--have never been more important. And, for all their supposed shortcomings, educators and the education system they serve have shown themselves to be remarkably resilient.

In an age of accountability and testing, teachers and administrators have made remarkable progress in assuming ownership of tests and test results for both formative and summative assessment of students' learning needs. They have engaged in classroom-based action research, and begun to work collaboratively with data around achievement issues of the greatest concern. Understanding students' learning needs has been further complicated by the sheer diversity of the students sitting in classrooms. For many in the United States, the influx of English learners, the high incidence of learning disabilities, and the record number of children in poverty are simply statistics. For teachers, these problems have faces and hearts and minds; they are the reality of the students they teach.

Even as we increase expectations of students' academic performance, teachers and principals spend greater amounts of time trying to ensure students are fed and nurtured socially and emotionally so that it is possible for them to learn.

If there is some good news here, it is that we make fewer assumptions about whom and what we teach and how to teach it. Research has helped establish the efficacy of various education reforms that can serve as models for wider implementation. Importantly, workforce data have reinforced the value of education not just to the individual but to the society as a whole. Development of new state longitudinal data systems helps researchers and practitioners take a longer, more systematic view of education, both raising issues (e.g., the school-to-prison pipeline) and suggesting new areas for more intense focus (e.g., early childhood and school readiness).

There is some hard work going on to help all our students succeed academically and in life. We should take stock of these efforts and celebrate them.