Maxine Hong Kingston wrote in a essay on language about a time when she ran into her aunt in Chinatown. She knew her aunt worked as a maid at a downtown hotel and Kingston used the Ehglish word "maid" which her aunt didn't hear. "If you don't know the word, you don't here the word," wrote Kingston. I keep thinking that explains a lot.

A friend of mine who started out as an education reformer said that most people have never even been near, much less in, a truly good school.