Education, Careers & Professional News
Microsoft Chairman Challenges Governors to Improve High Schools
Monday, February 28, 2005
Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, delivered a blistering critique of American high schools on Saturday, and his foundation promised $15 million to states to make immediate improvements.
Mr. Gates, speaking to the National Governors Association, said that “America`s high schools are obsolete” and are “ruining the lives of millions of Americans every year.”
High schools, he said, leave most students unprepared for college and for today`s jobs. “When I compare our high schools with what I see when I`m traveling abroad,” he added, “I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”
To address the problem, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it would give $15 million to the National Governors Association, to be disbursed to states that take significant steps to improve their high schools.
Marie Groark, a spokeswoman for the foundation, said states would have to develop proposals and compete for the grants.
To qualify, she said, a state would have to match the foundation`s grants with its own money. In addition, each state would have to devise a plan to improve its high schools - for example, by adopting rigorous academic standards, revising curriculums and developing tests to ensure that students have the skills needed for college or for better-paying jobs.
The Gates Foundation said it had invested $733 million in more than 1,500 high schools - about 8 percent of all public high schools - in the last five years.
In a roundtable discussion with several journalists, Mr. Gates said, “What we know about graduation rates, the people who graduate and the skills they have - it paints a very scary and almost shameful picture of the contrast between the idea of education as a great equalizer and the actual state of affairs.”
Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat who is chairman of the association, said: “Three out of 10 students who enter high school do not graduate. Four out of 10 who do graduate lack the skills and knowledge to go on to college or to succeed in the work force. The economic ramifications of that could be devastating to our country.”
Mr. Gates, one of the world`s wealthiest people, said there were moral as well as economic reasons to upgrade high schools, which he portrayed as a crossroads where children`s paths diverge. “Some go on to lives of accomplishment and privilege,” he said. “Others, to lives of frustration, joblessness and jail.”
Mr. Gates, whose mother was once a schoolteacher, said states should publish detailed data showing the percentages of children who drop out of high school or go on to college, broken down by race and income. The data, he said, would expose “the injustice” of the current system.
“In district after district,” Mr. Gates said, “wealthy white kids are taught Algebra II while low-income minority kids are taught to balance a checkbook.”