The trajectory of my life was forever changed by Eileen Daniel Riddle and James Gilchrist, two high school theater arts teachers who worked at my pre-busing, segregated suburban high school in the early 1970s.

He is a cautious and wary young man, creative and soft spoken. He can erupt in joy and laughter, but it’s always tempered. There’s little room for reckless abandon in a world of frequent change and unexpected loss.

Whether you are a parent in a “high performing” school with plenty of middle and upper class children or a parent with a child in a “low performing” school with a population weighed down by the stresses of poverty, there is a powerful deterrent custom-made for you when it comes to making the decision of whether or not to allow a child to take the tests.

I had a teacher in high school who handed me a broom and in doing so, inspired me to harness my intelligence to service my passion. She was a dedicated high school Theater Arts teacher, and she saved my life.

If we honestly want to raise student achievement, lower the achievement gap, or the opportunity gap as he calls it and prepare students to meet their future challenges; we need to begin by focusing with great emphasis on birth to 8 years old.

Addiction takes a terrible toll on families, on our health care system, on the economy and on the vitality of our youth. Currently we treat addiction like a moral failing, like an issue of personal responsibility rather than treating it like the disease it is.