Bill Gates : What's Wrong With American High Schools

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-gates1mar01.story

What's Wrong With American High Schools
The approaches of 50 years ago cannot work today, Bill Gates says.
By Bill Gates
Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, is co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

March 1, 2005

Our high schools are obsolete.

By obsolete, I don't just mean that they are broken, flawed and underfunded — although I can't argue with any of those descriptions.

What I mean is that they were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age. Today, even when they work exactly as designed, our high schools cannot teach our kids what they need to know. <snip>

This is an economic disaster. In the international competition to have the best supply of workers who can communicate clearly, analyze information and solve complex problems, the United States is falling behind. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates in the industrialized world.

In math and science, our fourth-graders rank among the top students in the world, but our 12th-graders are near the bottom. China has six times as many college graduates in engineering.

As bad as it is for our economy, it's even worse for our students. Today, most jobs that pay enough to support a family require some post-secondary education. Yet only half of all students who enter high school enroll in a post-secondary institution.
<snip>

First, declare that all students must graduate from high school ready for college, work and citizenship. Every politician and chief executive in the country should speak up for the belief that children need to take courses that prepare them for college.

Second, publish the data that measure our progress toward that goal. We already have some data that show us the extent of the problem. But we need to know more: What percentage of students are dropping out? What percentage are graduating? And this data must be broken down by race and income.

Finally, every state should commit to turning around failing schools and opening new ones. When the students don't learn, the school must change. Every state needs a strong intervention strategy to improve struggling schools. <snip>

but yet we have the highest rated universities in the world.

are extensions of the Government. Teachers in Universities are largely independent. Teachers in our Schools are bound by a fairly narrow philosophy. :shrug:

prestigious universities - more than they can accommodate. They are getting educated in our country and the majority in the public schools.

is as ignorant as a sack of rocks. Sad but true. I'm not saying that they're naturally stupid. Instead, they've been taught to dutifully learn what's needed for tests and then promptly forget it. The pop culture reinforces this attitude by making it uncool to be intellectual.

Judging by the quality of the graduates and by the stories I heard from students, today's high schools do not challenge students intellectually beyond test-taking skills, are far too obsessed with sports, and allow a vicious social atmosphere to prevail.

When I was teaching Japanese language, I could not assume that my students knew 1) how to find Japan on a map, 2) the difference between Japan and China, 3) English grammar, 4) world history, 5) American history, or much of anything else.

If I wanted to draw a comparison, it had to refer to something that had happened in pop culture in the past five years. Otherwise it went right over their heads.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

I am just finding out about Mr. Gatto, and am interested in reading more from him.

You can read his entire book online.

Perhaps I'll dig in one day? :hi:

when they graduate ~ educated in OUR schools?


"How public education cripples our kids, and why By John Taylor Gatto.

"John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American Education."

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/hp/frames.htm

I don't agree with every word, but it's a very thought provoking article none the less.

though to some extent that does play a role.

another way to view it is that public schools are selective merely by geography and little else. universities can be highly selective, as well as self-selective. anti-intellectual religious wingnuts don't send their kids to cornell, they send them to bob jones.

consequently, ivy league schools, mit, caltech, etc., are all satisfy their constituents by providing great academic learning and research.

public schools cannot simply do this, because they have a broader constituency. they need to satisfy parents who want their kids to go to the top colleges, but also parents who want their kids to just get married, get a good job straight out of high school, become a pastor, or just stay off drugs and out of jail.

keeping all these people happy takes away from the more singular focus the universities can afford.

and Foundations. GE, EXXON, Dupont, Johnson and Johnson, all have significant profitable investments in these institutions.

harvard's is now something like $23 BILLION.

Universities have adequate amounts "MONEY" Public Schools often times do not.

It's all "a bit simplistic" as there are many issues we can touch on regarding this topic.

I chose to touch one very basic issue above because I'd like to see PE take more risks and allow educators to educate without so many boundaries. I'd like to see parents have more "choice" in PE for starters. With choice, one could more easilly accomodate the varied goals of parents/students.

Schools should also have more "self directed" learning (providing the tools and mentors) and allow for differences in learning styles. They should have mixed age groups, so kids can learn from one another etc ... etc ...

Students should be "inspired" and enjoy life long learning. All too often, that's not the case.

In other countries teachers are revered. It is considered a very honorable profession. While, thanks to the Repugs, teachers are demonized in this country. They blame them with the problems associated with education because most teachers support us Democrats. This results in teachers having crappy pay and high turnover.

Another problem is that US schools are getting away from teaching kids critical thinking skills and more toward regurgitation. While memorization is important, the ability to use the knowledge to solve a problem is critical to being educated. I blame this also on Repugs with their emphasis on testing only as a sole judgment of a student's progress. It is amazing the difference between progress in the FCAT (memorization) and the SAT (more critical thinking) here in Florida.

A problem is the lack of funds in some states. While you can't just throw money at a problem (the favorite Repug cliche), there is also no such thing as a free lunch (the favorite economist's cliche). Smaller class sizes are part of the equation. They are not the cure but anyone that has taught will tell you that it is much easier to educate 20 kids versus 40. You go from teaching to crowd control depending on the type of kids you are teaching. It costs money to build schools and hire teachers at decent wages.

Parental involvement also is part of the problem. We've got a go-go-go, me-me-me type of society where parents shuffle kids off to activities instead of spending time with them. Programs where they require parental involvement with kids have shown great success.

Those are just a few ideas about education in the US off the top of my head.

No more of this whining about "one size fits all" from those who insist on "local control." You can have all the local control you want, as long as you meet national standards.

This means no more of these sham state tests. When a HS diploma from an Alabama high school is worth less than a HS diploma from a high school in New York, we have a problem. A big one. The solution is, the federal Department of Education devises a test based on what the consensus says all kids at the end of Grade X should know, and that's what's given. The NCLB law does NOT do this, and that's one of its key fatal flaws.

Class size is over-rated. Big time. 30 kids per class was the norm in 1970, and we did fine. Any teacher that can't handle 30 kids needs to find another line of work. Send the troublemakers to the principal's office and let him deal with 'em. Hopefully the principal is closer to Joe Clark than to Ned Flanders, and won't take any shit from the little bastards.

Get rid of about half of the administrative staff. Counting in my kid's middle school yearbook, I figure the staff/faculty ratio to be about 1 staff for every 2.5 teachers. That's ridiculous. We do NOT need that damn many counselors, vice principals, and other assorted pencil-pushers to get the basic job of educating done.

There should be a QUICK study done on student body size, after which every school should be either broken up, consolidated, or closed to meet what is decided to be the optimum range for school size based on length of commute, economies of scale for course selection, socialization of the student body, and ability of the now thinned-out staff to deal with the administrative end of running a proper school. I don't give a shit if your grandfather went to James K. Polk High School; if it's too big, too small, or the kids are coming in from 30 miles away, something has to happen.

You can make schools work for the public, but you'll probably have to step on some toes to do it. Most politicians don't have the nerve.

If your students are well-behaved, a class size of 30 is manageable. You may be a great disciplinarian, but if you're spending all your time playing whack-a-mole with squirrely students, the quality of your teaching will suffer.

I've taught classes ranging between 5 and 75 on the college level, and different sizes of classes are good for different subjects. Each size requires a different teaching style.

It sounds in hindsite like you were being sarcastic.

Unfortunately, I don't have the confidence in our schools that others do. ;)

Nobody can read a book if it isn't in a multimedia format.

Nobody can write a paper without worrying about font and line spacing.

Nobody can give a reasoned argument without bullet-points.

Computers and your software, Mr. Gates, are making people dumber. More dumb...dumberer.

Oh! Something shiny!

Why is that Mr. Gates? Is it possible that they know that a college education is becoming something they can't pay for? Lower salaries post college education means that they're going to be paying for that education much longer than they used to.

Education? May be the students that do well in Japan or China stay in school and work their asses of. US schools are primarily there to keep the kids off the street so their parents can keep on slaving to make others rick.

My kids were not seat warmers.

I was talking about our schools and the way society has allowed them to be used.

which is higher than ours.

China has a very low high school graduation rate, and only the top students get that far.

Japan and China are apples and oranges in that respect.

The problem is with
1) parents: they are too selfish to be bothered about their childern's future

2)materialisic society: too many distractions for the students--girls,shopping.movies, TV,etc.Most of them work part time(thus devoting less time for studies)NOT because they need to but to be able to shop and have fun

3) too much emphasis and invovement in Sports -both by the students and their parents

4)the Govt. : too busy waging needless wars instead of leading the nation for better and sound education policy.

The problem is that not every kid can or should go to college. And we're the only country that's decided (some 30 years ago) that all kids should be in a college prep program. We never asked the kids, though. And we complain when they're in 10th grade general math trying to learn how to multiply fractions.

That is, if we have a universal idea of "college." Auto mechanics, machinists, painters (the artistic kind), musicians ... they don't need a four year engineering degree.

When we compare our 4th graders with those in the Czech Republic, we do OK. We're comparing all of our 4th graders with all of their 4th graders. But when we compare our high schoolers with theirs, we're comparing all of ours with *some* of theirs. But they only take students at upper end of the curve who want to go to college into college-track high school. The rest go into vocational training.

Moreover, many kids and some parents don't want their kids to go to college. My high school class valedictorian took 10th grade general math, but knew a lot of trig. Not the equivalences, but how to actually use it. He had 3 years as an apprentice machinist behind him.

Strippers and businessman? There is a financial incentive to learn, unfortunately, and when auto mechanics and refrigerator repairman make more money than a BS, MS, and even PhD scientists there is little motivational factor for kids (and adults) to spend the extra effort, time, and money to learn physics and calculus or to chose those careers requiring them.

It's part of the overall problem with the system.

I agree with you.My nephew is a PhD in BioChemistry from Stanford and his neighbor is a landscape contractor(fancy name for a lawn maintenance guy).My nephew must have spent at least 10 years of post High School education and hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to his neigbor's zero.So why bother to study Math & Science when you can have the same or in some cases better lifestyle doing ordinary jobs requiring minimal skills.

We tend to judge jobs by how much they pay, not by their benefit to the community.

It is good to know science and math, if only because it makes us more informed citizens. How many people understand what a tragedy it is to let the Hubble Space Telescope shut down? How many people vote for school board members who push creationism? How many people understand why scientists are concerned about global climate change?

If people don't know science, they'll believe any old thing.

I have little formal training in science (unfortunately, I'm pretty "dysmathic"), but I love to read about it and subscribe to both the Scientific American and Discover. I'm afraid most Americans would look at the cover of either magazine and without even peering inside would say, "BAW-ring" and search the racks for a copy of People.

She has enough brains for two people, and is so unmotivated I want to scream. She is a grasshopper, not an ant, a party girl, which freaks out her ant mother. When she turns 18, she's out of here--let her live on the street. Some people will not learn except by Experience--that most expensive teacher. But she's popular!

Closing one school and opening another doesn't address the problems. All the "measuring results" in the world doesn't address the problems. I'd rather he lobbied for simple basic things that make a huge difference in a child's ability to learn - like:

not being poisoned by corporate pollution

having enough social services to ensure students aren't sitting in class hungry

making sure they aren't dropping out because they didn't have access to birth control/abortions

less tv/computer usage by children since we know it changes the way their brains develop

less money for war and tax cuts for the rich, more money for public schools and affordable college

less preservatives and processed food in our children's diets, including vending machines in public schools.

I know none of that is slick high profile work that will result in a new school being named after him, but it's all part of the solution.

The list is HUGE for the reasons the educational system is taking a back seat, but your off to a great start.

The public school system is a government with rules.

Sometimes the rules are arbitrary. When they are and your children are impacted, you have to take them on.

The school system is stratified into a caste system, designed as a vocational orientation tract system. Accept certain tracts for your child and they may limit growth and potential. The lower the status of the tract, the less imaginative and the more regimented the program.

The high end tracks are designed to produce the more talented individuals ready for college and university education and to go into the professions. You have to fight to get access to these because it is a scarce resource (and shouldn't be but we have to have a trillion dollar defense budget and war). Often, highly deserving individuals are denied access to these programs and you have to take extraordinary steps not to let this happen to your child. You may have to move or use some strategy to get your child into the right school.

If you as a parent are educated, talented or otherwise, you need to spend substantial time with your child in the formative years, because an institution alone typically is incapable of nurturing the type of growth that results in that which Mr. Gate's seeks. They are certainly not going to get this attention in day care or at school. You need to teach your child what you know about life and the necessary life skills. You need to invest resources in your children at a young age so that they understand that the application of resources, practice and learning are rewarded with personal development. This can be in almost any cultural area. If you rely on school alone to do this, you are handicapping your child.

Unfortunately, this requires a very real sacrifice that most are either unable or unwilling to make.

Ironically, there is nothing more productive.

But my daughter's experience a fairly average public high school speaks volumes. In some ways they seem more bent on putting students into boxes and not nurturing students interests and abilities. As for fostering a love of reading and learning--fuggeddabouddit.

In freshman English class she was required to read "To Kill A Mockingbird". Problem was she'd already read this book twice in grade school--she loved it in sixth grade--was sick of it in eigth grade. She asked if she could read something else as she'd already read it. Teacher said "No Way." my daughter refused to read it and failed the class. Summer school here we come. What does she have to read? Why it's "To Kill a Mockingbird" again. Kid who reads and writes on a college level flunks freshman English.

Enter a sympathetic guidance counselor who sets her up with a somewhat less hardened in the arteries teacher who asks her what she wants to read. Kid offers to read "Grapes of Wrath". She reads it, understands it, writes a creative and insightful report and gets an "A".

She's been taking American history since grade school but they've never gotten past the Civil War. Her history teacher told me that she had to start listening to CSPAN during the presidential campeign because Jen wanted to discuss political matters about which she (the teacher) had no clue.

I'm not saying that this is the norm. There are lots of great teachers out there working despite the system but the whole institution seems bent on destroying curiosity and individuality. The demand that teacher teach to the standardized tests no doubt make the situation worse. I don't know what the answer is.

I'm lucky because I'm in the arts, so I don't have to worry about that. But in the academic subjects, there are situations where a high school government teacher, for example, might have to scrap an opportunity for a semester long simulation with a local college that would develop critical thinking and research skills, and teach kids the day to day mechanics of writing resolutions, caucusing, and voting so that they can instead lecture and force the kids to take notes from a text book so they know everything that's covered on the standardized test.

My daughter was in an honors class that was doing a simulation like that, and loved it - she was writing resolutions til 11 at night, I kept having to kick her off their forum and make her go to bed, and on the drive in to school, she'd be saying things like "I have to be ready for my interview with Cokie Roberts today at noon" or "I'm so mad at Hillary, she hasn't returned my email and it's been two days!" without realizing how funny it sounded. But they had to cram for the standardized tests as a result of it, and the regular classes didn't do it in part because they had to spend more time on the basics for the test.

The role playing for them was so good that a few months later I was talking about some bill, and out of the blue she said "that sounds like something Conyers would have written" - and I looked it up, and sure enough it was something he had sponsored.

The testing leaves very little room for meaningful learning - you can do some, but you don't have the freedom to drop everything for a real life experience that the kids get so much more out of. An overview and memorization becomes a priority, instead of in-depth hands-on learning.

I will probably get disagreement on some of these points.

1.End main-streaming. Group students according to ability. Do not put the class idiot in with the class genius. Then the teaching gets aimed at the middle, so the idiot and the genius both are bored. I was one of the bright kids and was sooo totally bored by most of my classes.
2. Bring back vocational ed. Not everyone will or should go to college. Someone has to fix our cars and plumbing.
3. Bring back home ec. Everyone should know the basics of nutrition and how to cook before they move out on their own. Mom or Dad might be able to teach the cooking part, but do they know proper food handling?
4. Keep the arts. They are important for the students who do not always relate to the academic subjects and for the artistically inclined to get started on their career path.

I hated high school and loved college.

Of course, it seems that my experience is not typical. I think that Mr. Gates doesn't go far enough. All of his points are quite valid, but I feel that the REAL issue is that this nation, by and large, possess an inherent disdain for intellectualism. Smart kids languish away when they get to high school, fearful that their "true nature" will earn them scorn. No one likes the smart kids. They are the ones who are ridiculed daily from the fifth grade onward. I used to get stomped on a regular basis for no more reason then my academic performance. Then I started to fight all the time, and it kind of balanced out. But I digress. I was never one to hide my light under a bushel, so to speak. Unfortunately, too many kids are willing to hide their abilities to "fit in with the crowd", which is utter bullshit. Until America changes its collective attitude toward intellectuals, we'll go nowhere but down. We need to teach our children to look up to the smart kids, to want to emulate them. That appears to be the case in Japan, and we all know the Cinderella story of Japanese economic ascendency in the latter half of the 20th century, now don't we? I would argue that this pro0intellectualism played a major role in their success. And before someone says it, no, I don't think that this is a task akin to changing man's fundamental nature. It's a cultural value that time and concerted effort can change.

MojoXN