Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates Speaks to Congress

In a fascinating presentation of facts and figures Bill Gates laid out his view of the US present and future with regard to competitiveness and innovation.

Some striking information included the following: 59% Graduates of Computer Science Engineering Degrees coming out of the 15 best Universities in the US are foreign born students. These students are not allowed to work in the US after graduation unfortunately, because we have drastically reduced the number of h1b visas which would allow them to work.

This has resulted in companies like Microsoft who would prefer to employ these US educated foreign students in the US, having to locate them in Canada or other countries in order to utilize their knowledge. Gates also emphasized that for the US to maintain its competitive edge there was a need to be able to hire these folks, because if we didn't they might be hired in other places in the world.

Gates, began his speech with informing the committee that the United States is still the most productive and innovative of all the countries in the world, but also warned that if action was not taken quickly, that this could be changing and we could loose our edge. Gates went into detail explaining the education system in the US as it is and what he sees as necessary for us to achieve in order to educate our kids for their future success IE the future success of the country.
Interesting facts he pointed out were that up to the fourth grade level we are educating our kids at the highest level in the world. It is after this grade level that we start to drop off and every year after that fall dismally into a failure to inspire and educate our next generation.

One very alarming fact that he pointed out was that 95% of our teachers in these upper grade levels do not have the education themselves that is needed to teach the math and science. Gates also gives several key ideas that we can do to fix our educational system and grow our country to keep it competitive.