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Bill Gates: U.S. Education Harder to Improve Than Infant Mortality Rates (xconomy.com)
gthuang88 writes:
In a Q&A with Harvard students, Bill Gates said his foundation's work on K-12 education in the U.S. has had little impact, at least compared to its success in reducing infant mortality in developing countries. The challenge with education, he said, is that it is "essentially a social construct" that depends on creating the right culture of accountability and interactions -- and funding, of course. Gates said if he had a magic wand for the U.S., he would fix education, and for the rest of the world, nutrition.
He also said if he were a college student now, he would study artificial intelligence -- and that he was jealous that someone in the room could solve the problem of creating an AI that can read a book and pass an AP exam.
Gates predicted this generation of graduates will "solve" cancer, as well as the pesky problem of infectious diseases.
And even though his foundation's 20-year effort has failed to improve educaion -- "we'll keep going."
He also said if he were a college student now, he would study artificial intelligence -- and that he was jealous that someone in the room could solve the problem of creating an AI that can read a book and pass an AP exam.
Gates predicted this generation of graduates will "solve" cancer, as well as the pesky problem of infectious diseases.
And even though his foundation's 20-year effort has failed to improve educaion -- "we'll keep going."
Somewhere in all that, parent participation is left out. Parents are the key to a successful education program. That's why some cultures do better than others.
No, the challenge is that it's much harder to define an objective methodology for measuring the success of education than it is for measuring an infant mortality rate.
I logged onto yahoo yesterday when I'd heard about N Korea and it was buried under a bunch of celebrities that I'd never heard of doing something that I did not care about. I grew up in a poorer area of town and all of my Asian friends did well (very well in fact) in school, everyone else was a mixed bag, but tended to be on the lower side of educational attainment.
As a parent of one of your "masses" I have to agree with the OP. Common core is just fucking awful. My kids suffered through that bullshit just because some bright boy thought it was "improving" education. Here's a hint:. It's not. Whole language was not an improvement. Singapore math was not an improvement. Just fucking teach the class without a stupid assed gimmick that changes every couple years.
Common core isn't awful.
The state and federally imposed testing regime is awful.
The common core curriculum is just a base list of stuff you should be learning. Try to separate that from all the strawman bollocks that web sites bring up, using badly written textbooks.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
So your solution is to give up on 80-90% of the students because they require more help to learn?
I believe Bill Gates is correct, the root of the problem isn't necessarily funding but changing our societal norms. There are large subsets of Americans that do not value education and they pass those values on to their kids.
In Japan they have different types of high schools. Some are college prep and some are vocational prep. I do agree that we cannot treat all kids like they are the same but they should all be given the same chance to succeed.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Did she admit that "curricula" is plural and should go with a verb in the appropriate number?
Why is it that any story about education attracts so many people who've never had any?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Average elementary teacher salary is $59,000 , the average starting salary is $38k. Heritage numbers are suspect at best. NY teachers make 75k but thats the highest average salary in the nation. http://www.businessinsider.com...