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Sunday, September 12, 2010

The Raw Story | Bill Gates, John Legend tout education reform

The Raw Story | Bill Gates, John Legend tout education reform

Bill Gates, John Legend tout education reform

AFP
Published: Sunday September 12, 2010


Harvard University dropout and Microsoft founder Bill Gates and once homeschooled Grammy-winning singer John Legend made a pitch for reforming America's beleaguered public schools.

The pair joined David Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") for the international premiere at the Toronto film festival of his latest documentary "Waiting for Superman," which follows five students as they try to navigate a broken US public school system.

Gates said he hoped to raise awareness "that the (US) school system is not working well today" and encourage fixes.

"The global economy requires people to be better educated," he said. In the United States, "We need some real reforms."

Gates noted that companies like Microsoft are finding it harder to recruit