In “Man of La Mancha,” the Broadway musical adaption of Cervantes’ classic Don Quixote, the hero sings that his mission is “to fight for the right, without question or pause; to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.”

Don Quixote was a lone individual, while the Louisiana Federation of Teachers is a union whose strength derives from the combined power of thousands of members. Yet our mission is the same — to fight for the right.

In the Race to the Top Fund, the U.S. Department of Education is dangling a $4 billion carrot over schools across the United States, and more money for education is certainly a good thing...We have big concerns about the stick accompanying this $4 billion dollar carrot, however.