Bill Gates and Randi Weingarten
Can the billionaire philanthropist and the president of the American Federation of Teachers find common ground—and fix our nation’s education system?
Paolo Pellegrin / Magnum for NewsweekBill Gates and Randi Weingarten in Washington, D.C.
Our schools are lagging behind the rest of the world. Why is that? How did we fall so far behind?
Gates: Well, it’s the big issue. A lot of other countries have put effort into their school systems. So part of it is the competition is better. The Chinese, who have a 10th of our wealth, are running a great education system. There are some things we can learn from other systems. They have a longer school day in most countries, and a longer school year in most countries. And some of them have elements of their personnel system that are worth learning from.
Weingarten: What we’re seeing is that the United States, instead of moving ahead, is actually stagnating. We’re basically in the same place we’ve been, and these countries have moved forward. They’ve spent a lot of time investing in the preparation and support of teachers. Many of them teach a common curriculum, very similar to the common standards that Bill Gates
