Monday, March 07, 2005
Microsoft Man Talks about Schools
Bill Gates has a great editorial in last week's LA Times. (Dave over at Radio Free Newport comments on the article as well). It's a great article on the fact that our schools are dinosaurs, and need to be revamped. They need to focus on preparing every student for college (even if every student is going to go to college). They should have that chance.
I love the idea of looking at schools with real data, and having an action plan in place to address those that are failing. Maybe it's me, but the comment below sounds a lot like 'No Child Left Behind':
"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."
Although I like what Bill has to say, this comment seems funny to me coming from a guy who dropped out of college:
"The idea behind the old high school system was that you could train an adequate workforce by sending only a small fraction of students to college, and that the other kids either couldn't do college work or didn't need to."
I love the idea of looking at schools with real data, and having an action plan in place to address those that are failing. Maybe it's me, but the comment below sounds a lot like 'No Child Left Behind':
"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."
Although I like what Bill has to say, this comment seems funny to me coming from a guy who dropped out of college:
"The idea behind the old high school system was that you could train an adequate workforce by sending only a small fraction of students to college, and that the other kids either couldn't do college work or didn't need to."
