William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, was quoted in Vanity Fair in 1994: "The moral education of our children is the first priority of a nation. We're not just talking about learning subjects here, about history or calculus- whatever. In the education of our children, we're involved in nothing less than the architecture of souls."

Derik Bok, Harvard University president reporting in 1990 on the university's divestiture of all stockholdings in tobacco companies, said the decision had been "motivated by a desire not to be associated as a shareholder with companies engaged in significant sales of products that create a substantial and unjustified risk of harm to other human beings."

Ernest L. Boyer, President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, commented on the increasing federal role in education, "If I had ever whispered 'national standards', I think I would have...