Blog

The latest news on increased US high school graduation rates is heartening. But not enough of those gains are propelling students through to college graduation:

The big take way from recent good news about childhood obesity rates is this: Don't get overwhelmed. Put one foot in front of the other and just go.

It's clearly possible for schools to get amazing results for traditionally underserved children. The challenge is that high-performing schools are too often bright spots in systems that leave too many children behind. School reform efforts could continue to focus on schools that beat the odds. But we’ll reach far more students by changing the odds.

This year, the foundation will hit a symbolic watershed: $1 billion committed to support education reform, better childhood health, family economic stability and other initiatives. The organizations we’ve supported have achieved enormous progress to date. But we believe that going forward, our dollars can work even harder.

Cost-intensive cash micropayments burden both customers and microfinance institutions. A new mobile payment pilot from Swadhaar, Airtel and Axis bank may streamline costs if regulatory complexities can be overcome.

We don’t want Arkansas teachers to have to dig for information or labor over putting the pieces together; we want it presented to them in a way that’s immediately useful in the classroom setting. The Ed-Fi solution provides us the opportunity to do that – and to accomplish our goals quickly and efficiently, while minimizing cost by utilizing our state’s existing data systems and information technology architecture.

Children across India suffer needlessly from malnutrition. Evidence-based school health programs, administered well, are key to changing that situation. In the coming months, we look forward to progress on three clear fronts.

An emerging movement of high impact low cost schools holds promise for South African education. But scale will only be possible if the National Department of Education throws its weight behind the movement.

Bill Clinton said that this generation would be the first to die younger than our parents. I was worried and wanted to do what I could to help.

In the past, I’ve subscribed to the “let a thousand flowers bloom” philosophy of technical development. However, given the increasing demands educators face, we need to coalesce around a single comprehensive and timely education data standard that ensures usability.