Summit 2009: Bill Gates on Education Reform

Common standards across all 50 states, better ways to identify effective teachers and taking a page from charter schools can help reduce America’s dropout rate, send more kids to college and help the nation compete internationally.

That was the message Bill Gates delivered Tuesday morning to the opening general session of the National Conference of State Legislatures in Philadelphia. Gates, the software entrepreneur who has turned his fortune and attention to philanthropy, spoke to a packed ballroom of legislators, legislative staff and other attendees at the annual gathering.

“We’ve been in an economic crisis for a year or so,” Gates said. “We’ve been in an education crisis for decades. Our performance at every level is dropping against the rest of the world. It’s a reflection of weak system run by old beliefs and bad habits.”

While Gates never mentioned the Bush administration initiative No Child Left Behind, his talk came as educators and policymakers around the country contemplate what will take the place of that education legislation, which is up for reauthorization. And he said the onus was on state lawmakers to make the changes that are needed, particularly when it comes to how they spend the federal stimulus money targeted for education.

“The $100 billion in education stimulus money should do more than stimulate the economy,” he said. “It should stimulate us to rethink the way we run our schools. We need to make achievement more measurable and the system more accountable.”

Gates focused first on the changes colleges need to make.

“College completion rates in the U.S. have been flat since the 1970s,” he said, adding that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had the goal of dramatically increasing the number of people completing post-secondary education or credential programs.

To achieve that, he said, policymakers need first to “find out which colleges are doing a good job. The second step is to make an important shift in the incentive system.”

Colleges need better ways to measure which programs help students succeed and financial incentives should encourage them to offer “courses and counseling that guide students toward explicit job goals.”

Gates then turned to what he called the “appalling” high school dropout rate--30 percent overall and nearly 50 percent for minority students.”

To stem that, he said, policymakers should look to charter schools. Much of the innovation in public education is there, Gates said, but “unfortunately, states are putting caps on the number of these high-performing schools. Why do we want to put caps on the greatest success stories in American education?

“Charter schools are where many of the new discoveries are coming from,” including the effect of longer days, teacher data on student performance and the importance of having a large number of top teachers in one school.

The two crucial things needed to improve graduation rates are better data to track student performance linked to teachers and higher standards that are common from states to state.

Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, said technology could play a key role.

“There will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn” if there are common standards, he said. “Imagine having the people who create electrifying video games applying their intelligence to online tools that pull kids in and make algebra fun.”

He also called for online videos of every required course taught by master teachers and made available free. “They are phenomenal tools that can help every student in the country.”

Legislators should use the stimulus money for systems that can track student performance from early childhood education through high school, into college and then the workplace

“If your state doesn’t join the common standards, your kids will be left behind. And if too many states opt out, the country will be left behind.”

Gates acknowledged not everyone will support this effort.

“If you do build this system and get this data, you may have to deal with people who don’t want you to use it,” he said. “I understand the legitimate concern of teachers who point out that, without the right design, teacher measurement systems based on student performance could seem arbitrary.”

But a fair system that blends test scores, classroom observation and other measures will be seen as fair by teachers.

Gates finished telling lawmakers that whether it’s an ethical concern about improving education for all or a bottom-line focus on how a well-educated work force affects the economy, all lawmakers should take education reform as their mission.