2005年NPR美国国家公共电台三月-Governors Discuss Business,Education at S

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From NPR news, this is all things considered. I'm Janifer Ladon.
42 governors gathered in Washington this weekend for a conference on high school education. There is widespread concern that a high school diploma doesn't mean much these days. And too many students don't even bother to get one. Universities and employers say many who do finish high school don't have the skills they need. We begin our coverage¹ of this weekend's conference with a report from NPR's Racial Johns.
Jinpher Grandhome of Michigan says the governors have no choice. Throughout the last century, people came to her state because they could get a great job in the automobile³ factories without a degree. Democrat⁴ Grandhome says those days are gone.
"The latest auto² factory that was built in Michigan is not hiring a single soul that does not have a college degree, because you've got robotics on the line, you need people who can engineer the robots and maintain them, you need people who've got sophistication with respect to math and to science skills."
In Michigan only 70 out of 100 high school students graduate on time. Of that 70, 41 immediately enter college and only 29 are still enrolled⁵ a year later. Nationwide nearly two thirds of college freshmen⁶ need remedial tutoring in reading, math and science. And it's not just a problem at poor schools with fewer sources. Kerry Kilinger is Chairman and CEO of Washington Mutual⁷ insurance company in Seattle. He told the governors that even students in wealthier areas like nearby Belfry Washington are falling behind in the global economy.
"Despite the advantages that they enjoy by the eighth grade, the Belfry students have already fallen behind such countries as Korea, Japan, Singapore, Belgium, Hongkong and the Czech Republic in math and science."
Kilinger and other corporate⁸ CEOs teened with the nation's governors because they say the lack of trained well-educated workers is making their companies less competitive. Countries like India and China are producing many more students with advanced degrees. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told the governors that's happening in part because the American high school is obsolete⁹.
"Training the workforce¹⁰ of tomorrow with these high schools is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. It's the wrong tool for the times."
The Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation has spent nearly a billion dollars building new high schools and scaling down existing ones. But some governors feel this redesign movement will strain their tight budgets even more. They are also trying to figure out how their plans for high schools will fit in with President Bush's efforts. The President has proposed extending his "No Child Left Behind" law to high school. That would mean more testing for students and penalties for schools that don't measure up. Still, Arkansas governor Mike Harkerby, a Republican, believes his statehouse colleagues shouldn't look to Washington for answers.
"I never believe it. That was the role of "No Child Left Behind", was to find out that we've been wasting a lot of our money, spending it poorly, spending it inefficiently¹¹ and somehow believing that that's the federal government's responsibility to fix what we messed up. It's our responsibility, but they helped to put the light on it. That was what was helpful."
Governors spent this weekend focusing on tangible¹² strategies for high schools, like beeting up curricular, teacher training and coming up with the uniform way to determine dropout¹³ and graduation rate. 13 states have formed a coalition¹⁴ to lead the way in redesigning schools and curricular. They'll be helped by a 52-million-dollar grant from 6 major foundations announced today at the summit.