A High-Powered Hill Appearance

One of our campaign's funders, Bill Gates, was on Capitol Hill yesterday testifying before the House Committee on Science and Technology. He spoke about how a strong economy needs a strong educational foundation, "While America's innovation heritage is unparalleled, the evidence is mounting that we are failing to make the investments in our young people, our workers, our scientific research infrastructure, and our economy that will enable us to retain our global innovation leadership."

He laid out the dramatic stakes facing the United States if we continue to ignore the crisis in our schools, "Too many of our students fail to graduate from high school with the basic skills they will need to succeed in the 21st century economy, much less prepared for the rigors of college and career."

Gates cited many of the statistics we've used in this campaign: our low graduation rates (we're ranked 20th in the country), high remediation rates for college freshman (more than one-third have to take at least one remedial course in college), and the fact that our students fall further behind in international comparisons the longer they're in school.

He suggested that top performing schools have high expectations and high levels of support, and that:

We have to find better ways to reward and retain the most effective teachers and assign more of them to classes where they are needed the most. It should be a given that every child has an effective teacher every year of their school career.

He also challenged the Congressional leaders to answer three important questions:

Do we know how we are doing? Do we have transparent, common student performance data as the foundation for measuring impact and making decisions?
Do we know where we're going? Are we clear about our destination - ensuring that every student graduates from high school ready to succeed in college, career, and life?
Do we have what we need to get there? Are we providing the support, working conditions and incentives necessary for teachers to be truly effective?

These are the same questions this campaign is asking of the presidential candidates, hoping that they take the opportunity while on a national stage to answer these crucial issues. It's up to us, and to you, our supporters, to compel them to do so.