Roberto Unger & Cornel West

The school in a democracy should take no part in delivering to the child the ancient message of the family or the local community: Become like me. It has a bigger job: to equip the child with the means to think and to stand on his or her own feet, bringing the ideas and experiences of far away or long ago to bear upon the understanding of the here and now. The school should examine possibilities of imagination and of life that the surrounding society is unable or unwilling to countenance...

Unger & West, The Future of American Progressivism (1998), 70.