Is High School Obsolete?

45 governors got together on Saturday to discuss the state of the American education system. Bill Gates was there and threw in his two cents...

"America's high schools are obsolete," Gates said. "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."

source: Yahoo News

OK, so he put in a little more than his two cents... In fact, he's put $700 million into reducing class sizes. And, I think he's got a point. Our education system hasn't kept up. Agricultural and manufacturing work is dissappearing in this country and students have to be prepared for college or at least to enter into a more technically oriented job market.

I think accountiblility in the education system has brought new emphasis on the fundamentals in elementary education. Though perhaps poorly conceived, the "No Child Left Behind" Act has brought some improvement in primary schools. A new focus on how we are preparing our High School students for the modern work force may be just what we need to keep the country competitive in the new global marketplace.