US High School Reform

Education is one of my favorite topics, and is clearly also one of the toughest issues facing the US. The standard of US education has been on the decline for quite some time; in a recent survey, the US ranked 16th out of 20 industrialized nations. And while some of the issues have nothing to do with the school system, there is still clearly plenty of room for improvement. 

USA Today reported that Bill Gates described US high schools as "obsolete" in a keynote he gave at a recent education summit. He's pledging $15 million of his own money towards various efforts, as well as $1.2 billion from his foundation. I'd love to learn more about what those efforts will be.