Gates blasts US public schools
Gates "appalled" by high schools, Seattle Times, 27 Feb 05
"Bill Gates blasted the state of U.S. high schools yesterday in a speech before the National Governors Association education summit in the nation's capital.
Using words such as "ashamed" and "appalled" to describe his reaction to the failure rates for students, Microsoft's co-founder called America's high schools broken, flawed and underfunded, and said the system itself is obsolete.
This was one of Gates' first major speeches on public schools before a national political audience. He was introduced by his old friend, Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat who is considered a possible candidate for president in 2008.
Though Gates' philanthropic funds have had an impact on education issues for several years, his personal appearance at such a venue suggests an even stronger move by Gates to fix public education by working directly with key political leaders.
"When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow," he said.
"The key problem is political will," he said, discussing resistance to change. He said it was "morally wrong" to offer more advanced levels of coursework to high-income students compared with that offered many minority and low-income scholars. And he trumpeted the goal of preparing every high-school student for either two- or four-year college programs.
"Only one-third of our students graduate from high school ready for college, work and citizenship," he said. Gates spoke bluntly about the high dropout rates in America compared with those of other developed countries, and the differences between America's high-tech graduate degrees and those in India and China.
"In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did; China graduates twice as many students with bachelor's degrees as the United States, and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering.""
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