I wrote a letter last week talking about the work of the foundation, sharing some of the problems. And Warren Buffet had recommended I do that -- being honest about what was going well, what wasn't, and making it kind of an annual thing. A goal I had there was to draw more people in to work on those problems, because I think there are some very important problems that don't get worked on naturally. That is, the market does not drive the scientists, the communicators, the thinkers, the governments to do the right things. And only by paying attention to these things and having brilliant people who care and draw other people in can we make as much progress as we need to.
A semana pasada escribín unha carta sobre o traballo da fundación, contando algúns dos problemas. E Warren Buffet recomendárame ser sincero sobre o que ía ben e o que non, e facelo de forma anual. Eu quería conseguir que máis xente traballara nestes problemas, porque penso que algúns deles son moi importantes e que non se resolven sós. O mercado non leva aos científicos, aos profesionais da comunicación, aos pensadores, aos gobernantes a facer as cousas correctas. E tan só prestando atención a estas cousas e só tendo xente brillante que se preocupa e atrae a outra xente, só así podemos progresar tanto coma necesitamos.
So this morning I'm going to share two of these problems and talk about where they stand. But before I dive into those I want to admit that I am an optimist. Any tough problem, I think it can be solved. And part of the reason I feel that way is looking at the past. Over the past century, average lifespan has more than doubled. Another statistic, perhaps my favorite, is to look at childhood deaths. As recently as 1960, 110 million children were born, and 20 million of those died before the age of five. Five years ago, 135 million children were born -- so, more -- and less than 10 million of them died before the age of five. So that's a factor of two reduction of the childhood death rate. It's a phenomenal thing. Each one of those lives matters a lot.
Esta mañá vou compartir con vós dous destes problemas e comentar o seu estado actual. Pero antes de profundar nisto debo admitir que son un optimista. Creo que calquera problema grave ten solución. E unha das razóns polas que penso así é que miro ó pasado. No último século, a vida media das persoas máis que se duplicou. Outra estatística, quizais a miña preferida, é a da mortalidade infantil. En 1960 naceron 110 millóns de nenos dos que 20 millóns morreron antes de chegar aos 5 anos. Hai cinco anos naceron 135 millóns de nenos -son máis- e menos de 10 millóns morreron antes de acadar os cinco anos. Isto supón unha redución á metade da taxa de mortalidade infantil. É unha cousa fenomenal. Cada unha desas vidas é moi importante.
And the key reason we were able to it was not only rising incomes but also a few key breakthroughs: vaccines that were used more widely. For example, measles was four million of the deaths back as recently as 1990 and now is under 400,000. So we really can make changes. The next breakthrough is to cut that 10 million in half again. And I think that's doable in well under 20 years. Why? Well there's only a few diseases that account for the vast majority of those deaths: diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria.
E a razón de conseguir isto non foi só o aumento dos ingresos, tamén houbo unha serie de avances clave, coma a difusión do uso das vacinas. O sarampelo, por exemplo, causou catro millóns das mortes dende 1990 e actualmente causa menos de 400.000. Así que realmente podemos cambiar as cousas. O próximo gran avance será reducir eses 10 millóns outra vez á metade. E eu creo que isto é factible en menos de 20 anos. Por que? Porque hai só unhas poucas enfermidades que causan a maior parte das mortes: a diarrea, a neumonía e a malaria.
So that brings us to the first problem that I'll raise this morning, which is how do we stop a deadly disease that's spread by mosquitos?
Isto nos leva ao primeiro problema que vou expoñer esta mañá: Como deter unha enfermidade mortal transmitida por mosquitos?
Well, what's the history of this disease? It's been a severe disease for thousands of years. In fact, if we look at the genetic code, it's the only disease we can see that people who lived in Africa actually evolved several things to avoid malarial deaths. Deaths actually peaked at a bit over five million in the 1930s. So it was absolutely gigantic. And the disease was all over the world. A terrible disease. It was in the United States. It was in Europe. People didn't know what caused it until the early 1900s, when a British military man figured out that it was mosquitos. So it was everywhere. And two tools helped bring the death rate down. One was killing the mosquitos with DDT. The other was treating the patients with quinine, or quinine derivatives. And so that's why the death rate did come down.
Cal é a historia desta enfermidade? É unha enfermidade grave dende hai xa milleiros de anos. De feito, se ollamos o código xenético, é a única enfermidade para a que se observa que a xente que viviu en África tivo cambios evolutivos para evita-la morte a causa da malaria. As mortes aumentaron un pouco dos 5 millóns nos anos 1930. Era unha cifra realmente enorme. E a enfermidade estaba presente por todo o mundo. Unha enfermidade terrible. Estaba nos Estados Unidos. E en Europa. A xente non sabía qué a causaba ata comezos dos anos 1900, cando un militar británico se deu de conta que eran os mosquitos. Estaba en todas partes. E dúas ferramentas axudaron a reducir a taxa de mortalidade: unha foi matar os mosquitos con DDT, a outra foi tratar aos doentes con quinina ou derivados dela. Así foi como descendeu a taxa de mortalidade.
Now, ironically, what happened was it was eliminated from all the temperate zones, which is where the rich countries are. So we can see: 1900, it's everywhere. 1945, it's still most places. 1970, the U.S. and most of Europe have gotten rid of it. 1990, you've gotten most of the northern areas. And more recently you can see it's just around the equator.
O irónico foi que se eliminou a malaria das zonas temperadas, que é onde se encontran os países ricos. Así, en 1900 a malaria está en todas partes. En 1945, aínda en case todas partes. En 1970, os Estados Unidos e a maior parte de Europa xa a erradicaran. En 1990 desaparecera xa practicamente dos países do norte. E máis recentemente está presente só en torno do Ecuador.
And so this leads to the paradox that because the disease is only in the poorer countries, it doesn't get much investment. For example, there's more money put into baldness drugs than are put into malaria. Now, baldness, it's a terrible thing. (Laughter) And rich men are afflicted. And so that's why that priority has been set.
Isto nos leva ó paradoxo de que como é unha enfermidade só presente nos países máis pobres non se invisten moitos cartos nela. Por exemplo, se invisten máis cartos en produtos contra a calvicie que contra a malaria. É certo, a calvicie é unha cousa terrible. (Risas) E os homes ricos están moi afectados. Así se explica o establecemento de prioridades.
But, malaria -- even the million deaths a year caused by malaria greatly understate its impact. Over 200 million people at any one time are suffering from it. It means that you can't get the economies in these areas going because it just holds things back so much. Now, malaria is of course transmitted by mosquitos. I brought some here, just so you could experience this. We'll let those roam around the auditorium a little bit. (Laughter) There's no reason only poor people should have the experience. (Laughter) (Applause) Those mosquitos are not infected.
Pero a malaria... mesmo o millón anual de mortes causadas pola malaria non dan unha idea suficiente do seu impacto. Máis de 200 millóns de persoas vense afectadas por ela. Isto significa que as economías destas áreas non progresan porque a malaria non deixa avanzar as cousas. Entón, a malaria está causada por mosquitos. Trouxen algúns para que poidades experimentalo. Vounos deixar voar un pouco polo auditorio. (Risas) Non é xusto que só os pobres poidan gozar da experiencia. (Risas) (Aplausos) Estes mosquitos non están infectados.
So we've come up with a few new things. We've got bed nets. And bed nets are a great tool. What it means is the mother and child stay under the bed net at night, so the mosquitos that bite late at night can't get at them. And when you use indoor spraying with DDT and those nets you can cut deaths by over 50 percent. And that's happened now in a number of countries. It's great to see.
Temos inventado algunhas cousas. Hai mosquiteiros para as camas. Son unha ferramenta formidable. A nai e o neno quedan baixo o mosquiteiro pola noite, e os mosquitos que pican pola noite non poden achegárselles. E cando se usa DDT en aerosol xunto cos mosquiteiros se poden reducir as mortes en máis dun 50%. Isto xa sucedeu en algúns países. É fantástico velo.
But we have to be careful because malaria -- the parasite evolves and the mosquito evolves. So every tool that we've ever had in the past has eventually become ineffective. And so you end up with two choices. If you go into a country with the right tools and the right way, you do it vigorously, you can actually get a local eradication. And that's where we saw the malaria map shrinking. Or, if you go in kind of half-heartedly, for a period of time you'll reduce the disease burden, but eventually those tools will become ineffective, and the death rate will soar back up again. And the world has gone through this where it paid attention and then didn't pay attention.
Pero debemos ter coidado porque no caso da malaria o parasito evoluciona e o mosquito evoluciona. Por iso tódalas armas usadas no pasado volvéronse eventualmente ineficaces. E rematas tendo dúas opcións. Se chegas a un país coas ferramentas xustas e actúas na forma axeitada, enerxicamente, podes lograr unha erradicación local, e así foi como vimos diminuir a presencia da malaria no mapa. Pero se non chegas con decisión, durante algún tempo reduces a presencia da enfermidade, pero as ferramentas poden volverse ineficaces, e a taxa de mortalidade volverá aumentar. E no mundo xa se teñen dado estes dous casos.
Now we're on the upswing. Bed net funding is up. There's new drug discovery going on. Our foundation has backed a vaccine that's going into phase three trial that starts in a couple months. And that should save over two thirds of the lives if it's effective. So we're going to have these new tools.
Neste momento estamos avanzando. Hai máis financiamento para mosquiteiros. Estanse descubrindo novos fármacos. A nosa fundación financiou unha vacina que vai comezar a terceira fase de proba nun par de meses. Se funciona, isto debería salvar máis dos dous terzos das vidas. Así que imos ter novas ferramentas.
But that alone doesn't give us the road map. Because the road map to get rid of this disease involves many things. It involves communicators to keep the funding high, to keep the visibility high, to tell the success stories. It involves social scientists, so we know how to get not just 70 percent of the people to use the bed nets, but 90 percent. We need mathematicians to come in and simulate this, to do Monte Carlo things to understand how these tools combine and work together. Of course we need drug companies to give us their expertise. We need rich-world governments to be very generous in providing aid for these things. And so as these elements come together, I'm quite optimistic that we will be able to eradicate malaria.
Pero non han bastar por si soas. Porque desfacerse desta enfermidade implica moitas cousas. Implica ter comunicadores para manter o financiamento alto, a visibilidade alta, para que dean a coñecer os éxitos. Implica ter sociólogos para saber como facer que a xente que usa os mosquiteiros nas camas non sexa o 70% senón o 90%. Precisamos matemáticos que fagan simulacións para comprender como combinar e facer funcionar estas ferramentas. Necesitamos, por suposto, compañías farmacéuticas que compartan con nós a súa experiencia. Necesitamos que os gobernos do mundo rico nos axuden e sexan moi xenerosos. Coa combinación destes elementos teño moitas esperanzas de que chegaremos erradicar a malaria.
Now let me turn to a second question, a fairly different question, but I'd say equally important. And this is: How do you make a teacher great? It seems like the kind of question that people would spend a lot of time on, and we'd understand very well. And the answer is, really, that we don't. Let's start with why this is important. Well, all of us here, I'll bet, had some great teachers. We all had a wonderful education. That's part of the reason we're here today, part of the reason we're successful. I can say that, even though I'm a college drop-out. I had great teachers.
E agora permítanme pasar a unha segunda pregunta, bastante diferente, pero eu diría igualmente importante. ¿Como se forma un gran profesor? Parece unha cuestión que poderíamos considerar a miúdo, e deberíamos comprender moi ben. Pero a realidade é que non. Vexamos porqué isto é importante. Aposto que todos os que estamos aquí tivemos moi bos profesores. Tivemos todos unha excelente educación. En parte por iso estamos aquí hoxe, é parte da razón do noso éxito. Eu podo dicir que, aínda que deixei a carreira, tiven moi bos profesores.
In fact, in the United States, the teaching system has worked fairly well. There are fairly effective teachers in a narrow set of places. So the top 20 percent of students have gotten a good education. And those top 20 percent have been the best in the world, if you measure them against the other top 20 percent. And they've gone on to create the revolutions in software and biotechnology and keep the U.S. at the forefront.
De feito, nos Estados Unidos, o sistema educativo funcionou bastante ben ata o de agora. Hai profesores moi bos nalgúns lugares específicos, de xeito que un 20% dos estudantes tivo unha moi boa educación. E este 20% foi o mellor do mundo, comparado cós outros mellores vintes por cento. Crearon as revolucións do software e a biotecnoloxía, mantendo aos Estados Unidos en primeira liña.
Now, the strength for those top 20 percent is starting to fade on a relative basis, but even more concerning is the education that the balance of people are getting. Not only has that been weak. it's getting weaker. And if you look at the economy, it really is only providing opportunities now to people with a better education. And we have to change this. We have to change it so that people have equal opportunity. We have to change it so that the country is strong and stays at the forefront of things that are driven by advanced education, like science and mathematics.
Agora a vantaxe que tiña este 20% sobre os outros está diminuíndo, pero máis preocupante aínda é a educación que recibe o resto da xente. Foi mala e estase volvendo peor. Se ollamos a economía, hoxe en día só brinda oportunidades á xente con mellor educación. E temos que cambiar isto. Temos que cambialo para que exista igualdade de oportunidades. Temos que cambialo para que o país sexa forte e se manteña na vangarda en campos que requiren unha educación avanzada, como a ciencia ou as matemáticas.
When I first learned the statistics, I was pretty stunned at how bad things are. Over 30 percent of kids never finish high school. And that had been covered up for a long time because they always took the dropout rate as the number who started in senior year and compared it to the number who finished senior year. Because they weren't tracking where the kids were before that. But most of the dropouts had taken place before that. They had to raise the stated dropout rate as soon as that tracking was done to over 30 percent. For minority kids, it's over 50 percent. And even if you graduate from high school, if you're low-income, you have less than a 25 percent chance of ever completing a college degree. If you're low-income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than you do of getting a four-year degree. And that doesn't seem entirely fair.
Cando coñecín os datos estatísticos quedei abraiado do mal que van as cousas. Máis do trinta por cento dos rapaces non remata o instituto. E isto non foi visible durante moito tempo porque sempre se calcula a taxa de abandono escolar coma a diferenza entre o número de alumnos que comezan o último ano e os que o terminan. Pero non contaban os rapaces que xa abandonaran antes. Que eran a maioría dos casos. Cando se comezou incluír estes rapaces tiveron que aumentar a taxa de abandono escolar a máis do 30%. Para rapaces procedentes de minorías, esta taxa supera o 50%. E aínda que remates o instituto, se tes baixos ingresos tes menos dun 25% de posibilidades de terminar unha carreira universitaria. Se es pobre nos Estados Unidos tes maior probabilidade de rematar no cárcere que de terminar unha carreira de catro anos. Non parece moi xusto.
So, how do you make education better?
Entón, ¿como mellorar a educación?
Now, our foundation, for the last nine years, has invested in this. There's many people working on it. We've worked on small schools, we've funded scholarships, we've done things in libraries. A lot of these things had a good effect. But the more we looked at it, the more we realized that having great teachers was the very key thing. And we hooked up with some people studying how much variation is there between teachers, between, say, the top quartile -- the very best -- and the bottom quartile. How much variation is there within a school or between schools? And the answer is that these variations are absolutely unbelievable. A top quartile teacher will increase the performance of their class -- based on test scores -- by over 10 percent in a single year. What does that mean? That means that if the entire U.S., for two years, had top quartile teachers, the entire difference between us and Asia would go away. Within four years we would be blowing everyone in the world away.
A nosa fundación leva nove anos investindo nisto. É moita a xente que está a traballar. Traballamos en pequenas escolas, financiamos becas, fixemos obras en bibliotecas. Moitas destas accións tiveron efectos positivos Pero canto máis observabamos, máis conscientes éramos de que ter bos profesores era a cuestión clave. E contactamos con xente que estudaba a variación existente entre profesores, entre, poñamos, o cuartil superior, os mellores, e o cuartil inferior. ¿Canta variación existe dentro dunha escola ou entre escolas? A resposta é que esas variacións son realmente incribles. Un profesor do cuartil superior mellorará o rendemento da clase, baseado nas notas dos exames, en máis dun 10% nun só ano. ¿Que significa isto? Significa que se todo Estados Unidos tivera, durante dous anos, profesores do cuartil superior, a diferencia que existe entre nós e Asia se esfumaría. En catro anos teríamos superado a todo o mundo.
So, it's simple. All you need are those top quartile teachers. And so you'd say, "Wow, we should reward those people. We should retain those people. We should find out what they're doing and transfer that skill to other people." But I can tell you that absolutely is not happening today.
É sinxelo.Todo o que necesitamos son estes profesores do cuartil superior. E poderíamos pensar: "Guau, habería que recompensar a esta xente. Habería que conservala. Deberíamos averiguar o que fan e transferir esas competencias a outra xente". Pero pódolles asegurar que isto non é en absoluto o que está pasando.
What are the characteristics of this top quartile? What do they look like? You might think these must be very senior teachers. And the answer is no. Once somebody has taught for three years their teaching quality does not change thereafter. The variation is very, very small. You might think these are people with master's degrees. They've gone back and they've gotten their Master's of Education. This chart takes four different factors and says how much do they explain teaching quality. That bottom thing, which says there's no effect at all, is a master's degree.
¿Cales son as características deste cuartil superior? ¿Como son? Poderíase pensar que son profesores con moita experiencia. O certo é que non. Unha vez que alguén ensinou durante tres anos a súa calidade educativa xa non cambia. A variación é moi, moi pequena. Poderíase pensar que son xente con másters, xente que seguiu estudando para obter un máster en educación. Este gráfico amosa catro factores e indica en que medida inflúen na calidade do ensino. Aquela cousa de abaixo, que non ten ningunha influencia, é un título de máster.
Now, the way the pay system works is there's two things that are rewarded. One is seniority. Because your pay goes up and you vest into your pension. The second is giving extra money to people who get their master's degree. But it in no way is associated with being a better teacher. Teach for America: slight effect. For math teachers majoring in math there's a measurable effect. But, overwhelmingly, it's your past performance. There are some people who are very good at this. And we've done almost nothing to study what that is and to draw it in and to replicate it, to raise the average capability -- or to encourage the people with it to stay in the system.
No sistema de pagos se recompensan dúas cousas. Unha é a antigüidade. Porque o teu soldo aumenta e preparas a túa pensión. A segunda é dar diñeiro extra á xente con un máster. Pero isto non ten nada que ver có feito de ser mellor profesor. Programa "Teach for America": lixeiro efecto. Para os profesores de matemáticas o feito de ter un máster ten unha certa influencia. Pero, sobre todo, o máis importante é o traballo que se fixo no pasado. Hai algunha xente moi boa. E non fixemos case nada para estudar que é o que os fa tan bos, e como identificalo e replicalo para mellorar a capacidade media e incentivar á xente apta a ficar no sistema.
You might say, "Do the good teachers stay and the bad teacher's leave?" The answer is, on average, the slightly better teachers leave the system. And it's a system with very high turnover.
Poderíamos preguntarnos se quedan os profesores bos e marchan os malos. A resposta é: como media, os profesores lixeiramente mellores abandonan o sistema. E é un sistema cunha grande rotación.
Now, there are a few places -- very few -- where great teachers are being made. A good example of one is a set of charter schools called KIPP. KIPP means Knowledge Is Power. It's an unbelievable thing. They have 66 schools -- mostly middle schools, some high schools -- and what goes on is great teaching. They take the poorest kids, and over 96 percent of their high school graduates go to four-year colleges. And the whole spirit and attitude in those schools is very different than in the normal public schools. They're team teaching. They're constantly improving their teachers. They're taking data, the test scores, and saying to a teacher, "Hey, you caused this amount of increase." They're deeply engaged in making teaching better.
Pero existen uns poucos sitios, moi poucos,onde se están a formar grandes profesores. Un bo exemplo é un grupo de escolas concertadas chamado KIPP. KIPP significa "Coñecemento é poder". É unha cousa incrible. Teñen 66 escolas, a maioría de ensinanza básica, algunhas de secundaria, e o que hai nelas é ensino de calidade. Collen ós rapaces máis pobres, e máis do 96% dos seus graduados estudan carreiras universitarias. E o espírito e a actitude xeral nestas escolas son totalmente distintos dos das escolas públicas normais. Hai ensino en equipo. Os profesores están a mellorar constantemente. Toman datos, resultados dos exames, e dinlle ó profesor: "Mira, eres a causa desta mellora nos resultados". Están moi comprometidos para mellorar o proceso de ensinanza.
When you actually go and sit in one of these classrooms, at first it's very bizarre. I sat down and I thought, "What is going on?" The teacher was running around, and the energy level was high. I thought, "I'm in the sports rally or something. What's going on?" And the teacher was constantly scanning to see which kids weren't paying attention, which kids were bored, and calling kids rapidly, putting things up on the board. It was a very dynamic environment, because particularly in those middle school years -- fifth through eighth grade -- keeping people engaged and setting the tone that everybody in the classroom needs to pay attention, nobody gets to make fun of it or have the position of the kid who doesn't want to be there. Everybody needs to be involved. And so KIPP is doing it.
Cando un chega e senta naquelas aulas, ó principio é moi estraño. Senteime e pensei: "¿Que está a pasar?". O profesor corría dun lado para outro, había moita enerxía. Pensei: "Debo de estar nun evento deportivo ou algo así, ¿que está pasando aquí?" E o profesor estaba todo o tempo pendente dos nenos que non estaban atendendo, dos que se aburrían, chamándoos rapidamente, poñendo cousas no encerado. Era un entorno moi dinámico, porque especialmente nestas idades, dos 10 aos 13 anos, é moi importante mantelos ocupados e marcar a dinámica da clase para que todo o mundo preste atención e non haxa ninguén que faga burla ou que preferiría estar noutra parte. Todo o mundo participa. Así é como o está facendo KIPP.
How does that compare to a normal school? Well, in a normal school, teachers aren't told how good they are. The data isn't gathered. In the teacher's contract, it will limit the number of times the principal can come into the classroom -- sometimes to once per year. And they need advanced notice to do that. So imagine running a factory where you've got these workers, some of them just making crap and the management is told, "Hey, you can only come down here once a year, but you need to let us know, because we might actually fool you, and try and do a good job in that one brief moment."
¿Cal é a diferencia respecto dunha escola normal? Nunha escola normal non se lles di aos profesores o bos que son. Non se recolle esta información. No contrato do profesor se limita o número de veces que o director virá á aula, ás veces á unha soa vez por curso. E ten que avisar con antelación. Imaxinen ter unha fábrica con obreiros na que algúns deles están a facer un moi mal traballo e que lle digan ó capataz: "Só podes vir unha vez ó ano, e ademais tes que avisar antes, porque así podemos facer trampa e aparentar que traballamos ben".
Even a teacher who wants to improve doesn't have the tools to do it. They don't have the test scores, and there's a whole thing of trying to block the data. For example, New York passed a law that said that the teacher improvement data could not be made available and used in the tenure decision for the teachers. And so that's sort of working in the opposite direction. But I'm optimistic about this, I think there are some clear things we can do.
Aínda que un profesor queira mellorar, non ten as ferramentas para facelo. Non teñen os resultados dos exames e hai unha tendencia a bloquear o acceso aos datos. Por exemplo, en Nova Iorque aprobouse unha lei que dicía que os datos sobre a mellora dos profesores non podían facilitarse e usarse á hora de dar a un profesor unha praza permanente. É como traballar na dirección contraria. Pero eu mantéñome optimista, hai cousas claras que podemos facer.
First of all, there's a lot more testing going on, and that's given us the picture of where we are. And that allows us to understand who's doing it well, and call them out, and find out what those techniques are. Of course, digital video is cheap now. Putting a few cameras in the classroom and saying that things are being recorded on an ongoing basis is very practical in all public schools. And so every few weeks teachers could sit down and say, "OK, here's a little clip of something I thought I did well. Here's a little clip of something I think I did poorly. Advise me -- when this kid acted up, how should I have dealt with that?" And they could all sit and work together on those problems. You can take the very best teachers and kind of annotate it, have it so everyone sees who is the very best at teaching this stuff.
Para empezar, estanse facendo moitos máis estudios, o que nos permite ver en que punto nos encontramos. E nos permite comprender quen o está facendo ben, e chamalos, e averiguar que técnicas están a usar. O vídeo dixital é barato hoxe en día. Poñer unhas cantas cámaras e dicir que as clases están a ser gravadas é moi práctico nas escolas públicas. Os profesores poderían reunirse de cada pouco tempo e dicir: " Mirade. Velaquí un vídeo de algo que fixen ben. E velaquí un vídeo de algo que fixen mal. ¿Algún consello? Cando este cativo se portou mal, ¿que debería ter feito eu?". E poderían traballar xuntos nestes problemas. Podes colle-los mellores profesores e rexistralo, e facer que todo o mundo vexa cales son as mellores clases de cada asignatura.
You can take those great courses and make them available so that a kid could go out and watch the physics course, learn from that. If you have a kid who's behind, you would know you could assign them that video to watch and review the concept. And in fact, these free courses could not only be available just on the Internet, but you could make it so that DVDs were always available, and so anybody who has access to a DVD player can have the very best teachers. And so by thinking of this as a personnel system, we can do it much better.
Podemos facer que ditas clases estean dispoñibles de modo que os nenos podan mirar as gravacións e aprender delas Se temos un neno que quedou por detrás do resto, saberíamos que podemos facerlle mirar o vídeo para repasar os conceptos. De feito, estes cursos gratuítos poderían estar dispoñibles non só en Internet, senón tamén en DVD, de forma que calquera con acceso a un DVD teña acceso aos mellores profesores. Se lle damos ao sistema un enfoque máis persoal podemos melloralo moito.
Now there's a book actually, about KIPP -- the place that this is going on -- that Jay Matthews, a news reporter, wrote -- called, "Work Hard, Be Nice." And I thought it was so fantastic. It gave you a sense of what a good teacher does. I'm going to send everyone here a free copy of this book. (Applause)
Hai un libro sobre KIPP, o lugar onde isto xa está a ocorrer, que escribiu o xornalista Jay Matthews e que se titula:"Traballa duro, sé amable". A min pareceume fabuloso. Axuda a comprender qué é o que fa un bo profesor. Vou enviar un exemplar gratuito a todos os aquí presentes. (Aplauso)
Now, we put a lot of money into education, and I really think that education is the most important thing to get right for the country to have as strong a future as it should have. In fact we have in the stimulus bill -- it's interesting -- the House version actually had money in it for these data systems, and it was taken out in the Senate because there are people who are threatened by these things.
Estanse a investir moitos cartos en educación, e estou convencido de que a educación é o primeiro que ten que funcionar ben para que o futuro do país sexa tan sólido como debería ser. De feito, na lei de estímulo económico a versión do Congreso asignaba cartos para estes sistemas de datos, pero foron suprimidos polo Senado porque hai xente que se sinte ameazada con estas cousas.
But I -- I'm optimistic. I think people are beginning to recognize how important this is, and it really can make a difference for millions of lives, if we get it right. I only had time to frame those two problems. There's a lot more problems like that -- AIDS, pneumonia -- I can just see you're getting excited, just at the very name of these things. And the skill sets required to tackle these things are very broad. You know, the system doesn't naturally make it happen. Governments don't naturally pick these things in the right way. The private sector doesn't naturally put its resources into these things.
Pero eu...mantéñome optimista. Creo que a xente está empezando a darse de conta do importante que é isto, e de que pode cambiar millóns de vidas se o facemos ben. Só tiven tempo de comentar estes dous problemas. Pero hai outros moitos: SIDA, neumonía..Vexo que vostedes se entusiasman con só escoita-los nomes. E as habilidades necesarias para abordar estes problemas son moi variadas. O sistema non resolve estes problemas de forma natural. Os gobernos non abordan axeitadamente estas cuestións de forma natural. O sector privado non inviste cartos nestas cousas de forma natural.
So it's going to take brilliant people like you to study these things, get other people involved -- and you're helping to come up with solutions. And with that, I think there's some great things that will come out of it.
Así que vai ser necesaria xente brillante coma vostedes para estudalas, para motivar a outra xente, para axudar a atopar solucións. Creo que así poderanse facer grandes cousas.
Thank you. (Applause)
Moitas gracias. (Aplauso)