Oprah Winfrey and Bill & Melinda Gates Join Forces
Declaring WAR on America's Failing Education system

Bill and Melinda Gates appeared on a two-part report on The Oprah Winfrey Show this week to raise awareness about the crisis affecting U.S. high schools.
For generations, Americans have worked to ensure that their children's lives will be better than their own. This core belief has remained strong even in a rapidly changing world, and a good education has long been considered the key to success. Yet while the kind of education young people must acquire to succeed today is drastically different, the nation’s schools have not changed in decades. The consequences are tragic:

• Nationwide, three out of every 10 students who enter high school this year will not graduate in the typical four years. For African American students, the number is more than four in 10. For Hispanic students, it's nearly five in 10
  

• High school dropouts are twice as likely as their graduating classmates to slip into poverty. In 2001, four out of 10 young adults who had no high school diploma got some type of government assistance. In 2004, nearly three-quarters of all high school dropouts didn't have jobs
  
• Students who do graduate from high school still face a tough climb. About a third of all new jobs require at least some college. And seven of the 10 fastest growing job categories call for education beyond high school
  
• Meanwhile, businesses report they can't find enough qualified workers. By 2020, the nation may face a shortage of 14 million workers with college-level skills.

Read more on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation web site

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The Answer: "When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Will Appear" by Calvin G. Sims

Date last updated: Monday, March 6, 2006 3:38 PM

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