Thomas Payzant takes a hard look at the role of public schools in serving the common good. Among other tough questions, Payzant asks whether an increasingly negative view of government that has been growing in American society is at odds with the expectations for what public schools must accomplish. He wonders whether public school districts asked to do too much, and whether the intimate connection between compelling issues of social justice and the role of public schools is more at risk today than at any previous point in the past hundred years.