Bill Gates, through his Gates Foundation, hopes to solve some of the world’s biggest problems using a new kind of philanthropy. In a passionate 10 minute excerpt from his February 2009 presentation at TED, he asks us to consider how we create great teachers.
Gates first recognizes that the economy is only providing opportunities to people who have a better education. And he notes that having great teachers is the key thing to providing these opportunities. He also discusses a recent study (which can be viewed in its entirety by clicking here) which demonstrates that top quartile teachers will increase the performance of their classroom students by 10 percentage points. As such, it should be our goal to get top teachers in front of our students.
In his talk, he also refers us to the successful educational programming done at the KIPP School in Houston, Texas. It was refreshing to hear that some of the team teaching approaches utilized in that school are part of the educational programming used here in Franklin. He also referred to the recent book by education journalist Jay Mathews on this successful school entitled Work Hard Be Nice.
It’s an engaging talk and many of the ideas should be kept in mind as we are asked to go down the path reducing expenditures on education in this town and in this country. Rather than cutting in these areas, we should be rewarding and retaining our best and brightest staff members.
To view the video, either click here or click on the image below.
