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Bill Gates Proclaims US High Schools Obsolete

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-coulda-told-you-that dept.

bryan sent us a story about Bill Gates' take on US High Schools. He says 'America's high schools are obsolete. By obsolete, I don't just mean that they're broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools even when they're working as designed cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.'"

2 of 971 comments (clear)

  1. This isn't Bill Gates by pHatidic · · Score: 5, Informative
    Bill Gates may be repeating it, but these are the ideas of the Aspen Group, a coalition of business leaders and billionaires. Their opinion is that schools were designed to make kids good factory workers, and they are obsolete because kids no longer grow up to work in factories. This is true, schools are obsolete. However, be use a skeptic's eye when these people tell you what the replacement should be.

    This is largely a group of Fabians out to preserve the social hierarchy. It's members include everyone from Steve Case to Jack Valenti. Anyway, I just thought you should know who that even if it is Bill advocating the ideas this time, he is really just the spokeman for a larger group.

  2. Re:I agree! by haluness · · Score: 5, Informative

    This more than anything else is the reason the third world (esp. India and China) will eat us alive

    having had my high school and college education in India, I can tell you that before entering college we study 2 languages along with the core sciences - and thats the last 2 years of high school.

    Before that, we do geography, history, civics, languages plus math , science (chemistry, biology, physics)

    True, college is more focussed - I did chemistry (major) for 3 years and had to take math and physics for 2 years. Thats one aspect I appreciate about college in the US - the fact that you *can* take/study subjects outside your area of specialization.

    I certainly learnt chemistry well in India, but I also didn't have the opportunities to broaden my mind.