school district. featured in the lightning rod documentary waiting for superman rhee turned the school system upsidedown, firing dozens of schoolteachers and closing 27 schools. you famously clashed with the unions while you were in office. do you think still in retrospect and looking forward, are teachers unions are a fundamental problem to educational reform? well, i think that teachers unions, but more specifically the contracts, the collective bargaining agreements that dictate a lot of the policies in school districts are extraordinarily problematic. one of the policies rhee has been fighting has to do with seniority. when schools cut their budgets, newer teachers are often laid off before the more experienced teachers regardless of their performance. it s the so-called last-in, first-out policy. this is a policy that makes absolutely no sense for children.
performing school districts at the time she took over. in 2007 the education world went into a frenzy over the possibility that michelle rhee could actually turn around the school district. featured in the lightning rod documentary waiting for superman rhee turned the school system upsidedown, firing dozens of schoolteachers and closing 27 schools. you famously clashed with the unions while you were in office. do you think still in retrospect and looking forward, are teachers unions are a fundamental problem to educational reform? well, i think that teachers unions, but more specifically the contracts, the collective bargaining agreements that dictate a lot of the policies in school districts are extraordinarily problematic. one of the policies rhee has been fighting has to do with seniority. when schools cut their budgets, newer teachers are often laid off before the more experienced teachers regardless of their performance.
in 2007 we spent over $10,000 per student. versus the $7,400 average for rich countries. how can we spend so much money and have so little to show for it? we ll ask that question and others to some of the leading figures in american education. here on this special and in a time essay. we ll examine the roll of teachers, testing and technology and we ll ask the man who spend billions of dollars trying to fix education about how he s spending his money, microsoft founder and philanthropist, bill gates. first, there are two nations whose students consistently rank on top of the world. south korea and finland. what is their secret? we ll take you there and show you how they get their impressive results with completely opposite approaches. let s get started. welcome to seoul, south california korea. there are many reasons to be impressed with this. ancient tiger that rose from the ashes of the civil war. but south korea s crown jewel is its education system. thanks to a militant
a country. indeed our democracy depends on an educated citizenry. let s take a look. 100 american kids entering high school, what does fate have in store for them? 25 out of that hundred won t graduate from high school, a total of 50 won t go to college. that s half the class that won t go on to higher education. 50 will attends college, but only 22 will graduate within six years. meanwhile other countries are outsmarting us. on a recent international test, u.s. students ranked only 15th in the world in reading, 15 in science and 31st in math. what s odd is that we have been outstanding most developed countries by a long shot. in 2007, we spent over 10,000 per student versus the $7,400 average for rich countries. highway can we spend so much money and have so little to show for it. we ll have a special ending of time essay, we ll examine the roles of teachers, testing and testing. and we ll ask the man who spent millions of dollars trying to fix education about how he s spend
100 representative american kids entering high school. what does fate have in store for them? 25 out of that 100 won t graduate from high school. a total of 50 won t go to college. that s half the class that won t go on to higher education. 50 will attend college, but only 22 will graduate within six years. meanwhile, other countries are outsmarting us. on a recent international test, u.s. students ranked only 15th in the world in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math. overall, the world economic forum ranks the quality of our education at 26th. what s odd is that we ve been outspending most developed countries by a long shot. in 2007, we spent over $10,000 per student versus the $7,400 average for rich countries. how can we spend so much money and have so little to show for it? we ll ask that question and others to some of the leading figures in american education here on this special essay. we ll examine the role of teachers, testing and technology. and we ask the man w