Bill Gates - US high schools obsolete
At a speech in a US high school Bill claimed
that the failure of the US high school system 'wasn't an accident
or a flaw in the system; it is the system'.
He outlined the Gates Millennium Scholars program
for minority students. But his main points were that:
- America's high schools are obsolete, broken, flawed and under-funded
- Even when high schools work exactly as designed, they cannot
teach our kids what they need to know today
- Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of
today is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on
a 50-year-old mainframe. It 's the wrong tool for the times
- High schools were designed fifty years ago to meet the needs
of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the
21st century, we will keep limiting, even ruining, the lives of
millions of Americans every year
- Today, only one-third of our students graduate from high school
ready for college, work and citizenship
Tough words from Bill, so what's his solution?
He gives three examples of turning around failed schools by applying
three principles; the new three R's, the basic building blocks of
better high schools:
- The first R is Rigour, making sure all students are given a
challenging curriculum that prepares them for college or work;
- The second R is Relevance, making sure kids have courses and
projects that clearly relate to their lives and their goals;
- The third R is Relationships, making sure kids have a number
of adults who know them, look out for them, and push them to achieve
Then there's his three goals:
- Declare that all students can and should graduate from high
school ready for college, work, and citizenship
- Publish the data that measures our progress toward that goal
- Turn around failing schools and open new ones
To be fair, Bill's putting his money where his mouth is and his
foundation has invested nearly one billion dollars so far to help
redesign the American high school, supporting more than fifteen
hundred high schools.
The
speech
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