If there's one thing that Americans have in common it's that the truth we seek is constantly being obscured. We are lied to. The lies come from commercials we watch, from politicians, from those like the tobacco company executives who swore that nicotine is not addictive, from fabrications suggesting that our children's lack of excelling on international tests somehow define us as second-class people, and from false statements declaring that American teachers are causal to the nation's educational problems. Unlike Jack Nicholson's angry declaration, "You can't handle the truth," as he played Colonel Nathan Jessup in the movie A Few Good Men, we think you can handle the truth. Therefore, this book is written. It's filled with stories and essays that tell the real truth about the plight of American education. Some of the stories will make you laugh, some make you cry. You will become angry, occasionally shocked. Each chapter will reveal deep problems and you will find yourself looking for easy answers. But there are none. What you will find are bold answers that will require the fighting spirit and courage of a nation. You will be challenged to join a "War worth Waging." We have not hesitated to identify, in addition to problems and bold solutions, the real villains, for there are villains. As the chapters undress them for you and expose their real identities, you will simultaneously be introduced to unsung heroes who teach in our nation's classrooms. They are heroes you will declare by book's end to be the cement that holds the nation together. They have never stopped teaching the skills and civility that the next generation needs to participate in and contribute to the perpetuation of the democracy. You will come to know, on a personal level, the American schoolteacher.