Mosquitos, malaria and education - Bill Gates
Summary
TLDRIn this transcript, the speaker discusses two significant global challenges: malaria and education. Highlighting the progress made in reducing childhood deaths through vaccines, the speaker emphasizes the need to eradicate malaria, especially in poorer regions. He advocates for innovative approaches, new tools, and global cooperation. The second challenge revolves around improving the quality of education, particularly by enhancing teacher effectiveness. Drawing on examples like the KIPP charter schools, he stresses the importance of better training, evaluation, and support for teachers to improve student outcomes and strengthen societies.
Takeaways
- 💼 Warren Buffett suggested writing an honest annual letter discussing the foundation's successes and challenges to engage more people in solving important global problems.
- 🦟 Malaria is a major problem in developing countries, and despite progress with tools like bed nets and DDT, the disease still kills millions. Innovation and continuous investment are needed to achieve eradication.
- 🌍 Many significant global issues, like diseases, don’t naturally attract investment or attention from governments, scientists, or the private sector, requiring external efforts to make progress.
- 📉 Childhood mortality rates have drastically improved over the past century, with significant reductions in deaths from diseases like measles due to vaccines and other interventions.
- 🎯 The foundation’s goal is to cut the remaining childhood mortality rate in half within 20 years, targeting diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria.
- 📊 Malaria has been eradicated in rich, temperate countries, but remains a burden in poorer, tropical regions, with limited global investment despite its significant impact.
- 📉 The education system in the United States is failing, with over 30% of children dropping out of high school, especially affecting low-income and minority groups.
- 🎓 Teacher quality plays a critical role in student success. Top teachers can significantly improve student outcomes, but the current system doesn’t prioritize or reward them appropriately.
- 📚 Innovations in teaching, like the Kip charter school model, show that with proper support, even students from disadvantaged backgrounds can succeed in higher education.
- 🎥 Leveraging technology, such as digital video for teacher feedback and sharing best practices, can help improve teaching quality and address systemic education challenges.
Q & A
What was the purpose of the speaker writing a letter as recommended by Warren Buffett?
-The speaker wrote the letter to discuss the work of the foundation, sharing both successes and challenges. The goal was to encourage more people to work on important problems that are often overlooked by the market and governments.
What is the first major problem the speaker addresses in the script?
-The first major problem is malaria, a deadly disease transmitted by mosquitoes, which predominantly affects poorer countries and does not receive sufficient investment compared to diseases like baldness.
How has malaria historically impacted global populations?
-Malaria has been a severe disease for thousands of years, peaking at over 5 million deaths in the 1930s. It was once widespread, including in the United States and Europe, but has now been mostly eradicated in richer, temperate zones.
What tools helped reduce malaria deaths in the past?
-DDT for killing mosquitoes and quinine (and its derivatives) for treating patients were the main tools used to reduce malaria deaths historically.
Why does the speaker say malaria remains a major problem in poorer countries?
-Malaria is mainly present in poorer countries, which do not attract much investment in research or treatment. This creates a paradox where the disease continues to thrive because it affects areas with limited economic and healthcare resources.
What is one of the newer solutions mentioned for combating malaria?
-Bed nets, combined with indoor spraying of DDT, have proven to cut deaths by over 50% in some countries. Additionally, a vaccine funded by the speaker's foundation is entering Phase 3 trials and could save over two-thirds of lives if effective.
What is the second major issue the speaker discusses?
-The second issue is how to improve the quality of teachers and the overall education system, especially in the U.S., where teaching quality varies significantly and is not properly incentivized or studied.
How much impact does a top-quartile teacher have on student performance?
-A top-quartile teacher can increase the performance of their students by over 10% in a single year, based on test scores.
What factors do not significantly affect teaching quality, according to the speaker?
-Factors such as seniority and having a master's degree have no measurable impact on teaching quality, despite these being rewarded in the current system.
What innovative approaches does the speaker suggest to improve teacher effectiveness?
-The speaker suggests increased testing, digital video to record classroom teaching, and fostering collaboration among teachers to review and improve their methods. These strategies, combined with learning from top teachers, could significantly enhance teacher quality.
Outlines
💡 Optimism in Addressing Global Problems
The speaker shares his commitment to addressing global issues through the foundation, inspired by Warren Buffett's advice to be transparent about challenges. He emphasizes the need to engage talented people to work on significant problems, noting that markets often fail to prioritize these. Citing progress in the reduction of childhood deaths, he highlights the impact of vaccines and medical advances. The speaker is optimistic that further reductions in deaths, especially from diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria, can be achieved in under 20 years.
🦟 The Fight Against Malaria
The speaker discusses malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes, which has been devastating populations for thousands of years. Despite being eliminated from wealthy, temperate regions, it remains rampant in poorer countries, with a million deaths annually. Tools like DDT and quinine helped reduce malaria historically, and innovations like bed nets and new vaccines are helping further today. However, the speaker warns that the disease and mosquitoes evolve, making it crucial to maintain strong efforts and collaboration across disciplines to eradicate the disease fully.
📚 The Challenge of Improving Education
Turning to education, the speaker addresses the challenge of creating great teachers. He notes that while some students in the U.S. receive excellent education, the majority, especially from low-income backgrounds, do not. Over 30% of students drop out of high school, and fewer than 25% of low-income students graduate from college. The speaker argues that the key to improving education lies in improving teacher quality, observing that the best teachers can significantly boost student performance, yet there is little effort to identify and replicate their methods.
🏫 The Importance of Effective Teaching
The speaker dives deeper into the issue of teacher quality, explaining that current systems do not reward or retain great teachers. Teachers with master's degrees or more experience do not necessarily perform better, and many talented teachers leave the profession. The speaker points to examples like KIPP charter schools, where high standards, data tracking, and dynamic teaching methods have led to exceptional outcomes for disadvantaged students. He stresses that replicating such environments and using modern tools like digital video can help scale effective teaching practices.
📊 Reforming Education with Data and Innovation
The speaker advocates for using data to improve education. He explains that testing provides insights into teaching quality, and digital video can be used to record and review teaching methods for improvement. By encouraging collaboration among teachers and using technology to enhance learning, he believes that the quality of education can be improved nationwide. He also mentions the need to replicate successful teaching models, like those seen in KIPP schools, and make top-tier educational resources widely available, particularly to disadvantaged students.
🚀 Optimism for Tackling Global Problems
The speaker concludes by reiterating his optimism for solving major global issues like malaria and education reform. He emphasizes that addressing these challenges requires dedicated, brilliant people to step up and lead efforts. Despite systemic barriers in governments and the private sector, the speaker believes that with enough attention and innovation, solutions to these critical problems can be found, ultimately improving the lives of millions of people.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Foundation
💡Warren Buffett
💡Optimism
💡Childhood deaths
💡Malaria
💡Mosquitoes
💡Bed nets
💡Education reform
💡KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program)
💡Teacher effectiveness
Highlights
Warren Buffett recommended writing a letter to discuss both successes and challenges in the foundation’s work.
Drawing attention to problems that markets and governments fail to address naturally, such as diseases and education reform.
In the past century, average lifespans have more than doubled, and childhood deaths have been significantly reduced.
The reduction in childhood deaths from 20 million to 10 million due to breakthroughs like vaccines and income growth.
Malaria was once a global issue but is now confined mainly to poorer countries, resulting in less funding and attention.
Mosquito nets and DDT have helped reduce malaria deaths by over 50% in many regions.
The foundation is backing a malaria vaccine in a phase 3 trial that could save over two-thirds of lives if successful.
Malaria eradication requires cooperation from drug companies, governments, social scientists, and communicators.
Over 30% of U.S. students never finish high school, and the dropout rate is even higher for minority groups.
Top quartile teachers can increase student performance by over 10% in a single year, but the system fails to recognize and reward them.
The KIPP charter schools model is highlighted for its effective teaching methods, with over 96% of graduates going to four-year colleges.
Teachers are not regularly evaluated, with limitations on principal visits and data use, hindering improvement.
Digital tools like video recordings in classrooms could help teachers improve by allowing for peer reviews and analysis.
New data systems and testing could provide insight into teacher effectiveness, but policies sometimes resist these innovations.
Education reform and addressing issues like AIDS and pneumonia require skilled individuals and innovative approaches beyond what governments or markets typically provide.
Transcripts
I wrote a letter last week talking about
the work of the foundation sharing some
of the problems uh and Warren Buffett
had recommended I do that being honest
about what was going well what was
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 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 I want to admit that I am
an optimist uh any tough problem I think
it it can be solved and part of the
reason I I feel that way is looking at
the past over the last century average
lifespan is 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 5 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 a factor of two
reduction in the childhood death rate
it's a phenomenal thing I mean each one
of those lives matters a lot
and the key reason we were able to do it
uh was uh not only Rising incomes but
also a few key breakthroughs vaccines
that were used more widely for example
measles was 4 million of the deaths uh
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
um why well there's only a few diseases
that account for the vast majority of
those deaths uh diarrhea
pneumonia and
malaria and so that brings us to the the
first problem uh that I'll I'll raise
this morning which is how do we stop a
disease a deadly disease that's spread
by
mosquitoes what's the history of this
disease it's been a severe disease for
thousands of years 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 that's actually peaked at a bit
over 5 million in the 1930s so it was
absolutely gigantic and the disease was
all over the world terrible disease it
was in the United States it was in
Europe uh people didn't know what caused
it until uh the early 1900s when an a
British military man figured out that it
it was
mosquitoes so it was
everywhere uh and two tools helped bring
the death rate down one was uh killing
the mosquitoes with DDT and the other
was treating the patients with quinine
or quinine derivatives uh and so that's
why the death rate did come down now
ironically what happened was it was
eliminated from all the temperate zones
which is where all the rich countries
are so we can see 1900 it's everywhere
1945 it's still most places 1970 the US
and most of Europe have gotten rid of it
1990 you've gotten most of the Northern
areas and then more recently you can see
it's just around the equator and so this
leads to the Paradox that because the
disease is only in the poor countries it
doesn't get much
investment uh for example there's more
money put into baldness drugs than are
put into malaria now baldness is it's
terrible thing
uh uh and rich men are
afflicted uh and so that's why that uh
priority has been set but malaria the
even the million deaths a year caused by
malaria greatly understate its impact uh
over 200 million people at any one time
were suffering from it uh means that you
can't get the economies in these areas
going because uh there's just it holds
things back so much now malar is of
course transmitted by mosquitoes I
brought some here so you could uh
experience this we'll let let those roam
around the
uh Auditorium a little
bit there there's no reason only poor
people should have have the experience
uh
th those mosquitoes are not not infected
but
uh so we've come up with a few new
things uh we've got bed nets and bed
nets are a a great tool what it means is
the mother and child stay under the
bedet at night and so the mosquitoes
that bite late at night can't get at
them and when you use indoor sprain uh
with DDT and the those Nets you can cut
debts by over
50% and that's happened now in a number
of countries it's great to see 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 and
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 uh where it paid
attention and then didn't pay attention
now we're on the
upswing bed net funding is up uh there's
new drug Discovery going on 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 2third of lives if it's effective
and so we're going to have these new
tools but that alone doesn't give us the
road map uh cu the road map to get rid
of this disease involves many things it
involves communicators to keep uh 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% of people use the bed nets
but
90% uh we need mathematicians to come in
and simulate this do Monte Carlo things
to understand how these tools combine
and work together uh of course we need
drug companies uh to give us their
expertise uh we need Rich World
governments to be very generous in in
providing aid for these things and so as
these elements come together uh I'm
quite optimistic that we will be able to
eradicate malaria
well now let me turn uh to a second
question a fairly different question but
I'd say equally
important and this is how do you make a
teacher great now seems like the kind of
question that people would spend a lot
of time on and that 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
have some great teachers uh we all had a
wonderful education that's part of the
reason we're here today part of the
reason we're successful uh I can say
that even though I'm a College Dropout
uh I had great
teachers and 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% of students have gotten a
good education and those top 20%
have been the best in the world if you
measure them against the other top 20%
and they've gone on to create the
Revolutions in software and and
biotechnology and keep the us at the
Forefront now the strength for those top
20% is starting to fade on a relative
basis but even more concerning is the
education that the balance of people are
getting uh 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 so 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 and and stays in the Forefront of
things that are are driven by Advanced
education like Science and
Mathematics when I first learned the
statistics I was pretty stunned at how
bad things are over 30 % 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
and then compared it to the number that
finished senior year because they
weren't tracking where the kids were
before that but most of the dropouts had
taken place before that so they had to
raise the stated dropout rate as soon as
that tracking was done to over 30% for
minority kids it's over
50% and even even if you graduate from
high
school if you're lwi income you have
less than a 25% chance of ever
completing a college degree if you're
lwi 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 you know doesn't seem
entirely fair so how do you make
education better our foundation for the
last 9 years has invested in this
there's many people working on it uh
we've worked on small schools uh we
funded scholarships we've done things in
libraries uh 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 so
we hooked up with some people studying
how much variation is there between
teachers between say the top cortile the
very best and the bottom cortile how
much variation is there within a school
or between schools and the answer is
that these variations are absolutely
unbelievable uh a top quartile teacher
will increase the performance of their
class based on test scores by over 10%
in a single year what does that mean
well that means if the entire us for two
years had top cortile teachers the
entire difference between us and Asia
would go away and with within four years
we would be blowing everyone in the
world away so it's simple all you need
is those top cortile
teachers and so you'd say well wow
that's good 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 what are the characteristics of
this top core trial what do they they
look like you might think well these
must be very senior teachers and the
answer is no once somebody is taught for
3 years their teaching quality does not
change thereafter the variation is very
very
small you might think well these are
people with master's degrees they've
gone back and they've gotten their
masters of education this chart takes
four different factors and says how much
do they explain teaching quality bottom
thing which says there's no effect at
all is a master's
degree uh now the way the PA system
works is there's two things that are
rewarded one is seniority uh because
your pay goes up and you vest into your
pension and the second is giving extra
money to people to get their master's
degree but it in no way is associated
with being a better teacher Teach for
America slight effect uh for Math
teachers majoring in math is a 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 uh to to replicate it to
raise the average capability or to
encourage the people with it to stay in
the system you might say well do the
good teachers stay in the Bad Teachers
leave the answer is on average the
slightly better teachers leave the
system and it's a system with very high
turnover now there are a few places very
few where great teachers are being made
uh good example of one is a set of
charter schools called Kip Kip means
knowledge is power it's an unbelievable
thing they have 66 schools mostly middle
schools seven high schools and uh what
goes on is great teaching they take the
poorest kids and over 96% of their high
school graduates go to fouryear colleges
and the whole spirit and attitude in
those schools is very different than in
the Normal public school 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 and
so they're deeply engaged in making
teaching better when you actually go and
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 en energy levels
High I thought well I'm in the prep the
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 on kids rapidly putting
things up on the board it was a very
Dynamic environment because particularly
in those Middle School years fifth
through 8th 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 you know the kid who who
doesn't want to be there everybody needs
to be involved and so Kip is doing
it 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 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 do fool you and try
and do a good job in that one brief
moment 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 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 tenear
decision for the
teachers and so that's sort of working
in the the opposite
direction but I'm optimistic about this
I think there's some clear things uh we
can do 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
calling 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
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 okay 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 can 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 teaching the stuff you
can take those Great Courses and make
them available so that a kid could go
out and watch the physics uh 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 three courses
could not only be available just on the
internet but you could make it so that
DVDs were always uh 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
a Personnel system we can do it much
better uh there's a book actually about
Kip the the place that this is going on
that J Matthews a news week reporter
wrote called work hard be nice and I
thought it was so fantastic gave you a
sense of what a good teacher does I'm
going to send everyone here a free copy
of this book
um now we put a lot of money into
education and I really think that
education is the most important thing to
get right uh 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 uh was taken out in the Senate cuz
they're they're people are threatened by
these things but I I'm optimistic I
think uh people are beginning to
recognize uh how important this is and
it really can make a difference uh for
millions of lives if we get it
right well I only had time uh to frame
those two problems there's a lot more
problems like that uh AIDS pneumonia I
can just see you're getting excited uh
just at the the very name of these
things and the skill sets
required to to tackle these things are
very broad you know the system doesn't
naturally make it happen governments
don't naturally uh pick these things in
the right way uh the private sector
doesn't naturally put its its resources
into these things so it's going to take
brilliant people like you to study these
things get other people involved uh and
you're helping to come up with Solutions
and with that I think there's some great
things will come out of it thank you
thank
you thank you
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