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Microsoft's co-founder called America's high schools broken, flawed and underfunded, and said the system itself is obsolete.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.""

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm..._gates27m.html

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Classic American liberal

he "donates" computers to schools and then holds them hostage to his education/windows software.

That's called capitalism!

At least he means well.

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Classic American liberal

of course India and China have more college students than the US... they have over four times our population!!

Couldn't the schools just turn down the free computers?

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Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. - Theodore Roosevelt

I've never heard this conspiracy theory before. Gates is making our kids stupid?

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Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness ~Thomas Paine

We're the wealthiest country in the world and spend more per student than any other nation and, based on the investment, profit very little.

Everyone from Gates to the bi-partisan National Intelligence Council (a CIA advisory board) is warning us that the U.S. will lose ground to foreign competition in the technology field. And since that's all the U.S. has going for it (manufacturing is being exported) we should (*)(*)(*)(*) well protect it.

What we need is less focus on stupid BS like "tolerance" classes (and just because I'm against those fluff classes doesn't mean I'm promoting intolerance, P.C. police) and religion in schools. We spend more time debating about the pledge, the 10 commandments, and creationism in public schools than we do their efficiency. It's a joke, really.

Schools should not be for social engineering--they should prepare kids for the workforce.

Thankfully a very powerful man like Gates (who ironically dropped out of college I might add) is championing this cause. And with $40+ billion, he can speak in a blunt and straightforward fashion--unlike our spineless politicians who are often held hostage by teacher unions.

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Proudly a "South Park Republican"

like they do in the rest of the world? like WE did until the 1970's?

Think those countries tolerate cursing at teachers, throwing things, etc? How about giving teachers the ability to enforce discipline (I don't mean spanking) and if that means kicking kids out of school or putting them in special classes and giving them a label such as "difficult" then so be it. The rest of the kids shouldn't be punished because of a handful of disruptives. I mention them getting a "label" because this is the argument most who are against special classes usually make. That they will be "labeled." Too bad, time to ship up.

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JMS gets another English lesson:

Quote:

there is no "mostly unique;" thats like saying "sometimes always," its an oxymoron - its either one or the other.

The result:

Quote:

By the mid-19th century unique had developed a wider meaning, “not typical, unusual,” and it is in this wider sense that it is compared. The comparison of so-called absolutes in senses that are not absolute is standard in all varieties of speech and writing.

I hear my parents talk about how kids "back in the day" were put into shape if they did something stupid.

Based on my experience, I can attest to some soft teachers who took a lot of crap and only reinforced the class clown's view that he could get his way...

But some of my teachers were grade A hard-asses. One of his students cheated on the midterm exam and guess what? The teacher called his college and had his academic scholarship revoked. The teacher warned him, but he just didn't listen.

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Proudly a "South Park Republican"