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Everyone needs a coach.

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It doesn't matter whether you're a basketball player,

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a tennis player, a gymnast

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or a bridge player.

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(Laughter)

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My bridge coach, Sharon Osberg,

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says there are more pictures of the back of her head

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than anyone else's in the world. (Laughter)

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Sorry, Sharon. Here you go.

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We all need people who will give us feedback.

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That's how we improve.

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Unfortunately, there's one group of people

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who get almost no systematic feedback

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to help them do their jobs better,

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and these people

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have one of the most important jobs in the world.

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I'm talking about teachers.

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When Melinda and I learned

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how little useful feedback most teachers get,

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we were blown away.

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Until recently, over 98 percent of teachers

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just got one word of feedback:

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Satisfactory.

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If all my bridge coach ever told me

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was that I was "satisfactory,"

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I would have no hope of ever getting better.

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How would I know who was the best?

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How would I know what I was doing differently?

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Today, districts are revamping

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the way they evaluate teachers,

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but we still give them almost no feedback

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that actually helps them improve their practice.

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Our teachers deserve better.

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The system we have today isn't fair to them.

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It's not fair to students,

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and it's putting America's global leadership at risk.

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So today I want to talk about how we can help all teachers

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get the tools for improvement they want and deserve.

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Let's start by asking who's doing well.

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Well, unfortunately there's no international ranking tables

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for teacher feedback systems.

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So I looked at the countries

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whose students perform well academically,

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and looked at what they're doing

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to help their teachers improve.

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Consider the rankings for reading proficiency.

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The U.S. isn't number one.

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We're not even in the top 10.

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We're tied for 15th with Iceland and Poland.

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Now, out of all the places

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that do better than the U.S. in reading,

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how many of them have a formal system

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for helping teachers improve?

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Eleven out of 14.

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The U.S. is tied for 15th in reading,

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but we're 23rd in science and 31st in math.

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So there's really only one area where we're near the top,

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and that's in failing to give our teachers

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the help they need to develop their skills.

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Let's look at the best academic performer:

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the province of Shanghai, China.

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Now, they rank number one across the board,

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in reading, math and science,

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and one of the keys to Shanghai's incredible success

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is the way they help teachers keep improving.

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They made sure that younger teachers

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get a chance to watch master teachers at work.

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They have weekly study groups,

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where teachers get together and talk about what's working.

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They even require each teacher to observe

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and give feedback to their colleagues.

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You might ask, why is a system like this so important?

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It's because there's so much variation

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in the teaching profession.

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Some teachers are far more effective than others.

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In fact, there are teachers throughout the country

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who are helping their students make extraordinary gains.

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If today's average teacher

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could become as good as those teachers,

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our students would be blowing away the rest of the world.

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So we need a system that helps all our teachers

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be as good as the best.

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What would that system look like?

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Well, to find out, our foundation

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has been working with 3,000 teachers

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in districts across the country

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on a project called Measures of Effective Teaching.

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We had observers watch videos

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of teachers in the classroom

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and rate how they did on a range of practices.

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For example, did they ask their students

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challenging questions?

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Did they find multiple ways to explain an idea?

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We also had students fill out surveys with questions like,

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"Does your teacher know

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when the class understands a lesson?"

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"Do you learn to correct your mistakes?"

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And what we found is very exciting.

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First, the teachers who did well on these observations

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had far better student outcomes.

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So it tells us we're asking the right questions.

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And second, teachers in the program told us

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that these videos and these surveys from the students

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were very helpful diagnostic tools,

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because they pointed to specific places

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where they can improve.

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I want to show you what this video component of MET

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looks like in action.

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(Music)

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(Video) Sarah Brown Wessling: Good morning everybody.

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Let's talk about what's going on today.

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To get started, we're doing a peer review day, okay?

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A peer review day, and our goal by the end of class

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is for you to be able to determine

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whether or not you have moves to prove in your essays.

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My name is Sarah Brown Wessling.

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I am a high school English teacher

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at Johnston High School in Johnston, Iowa.

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Turn to somebody next to you.

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Tell them what you think I mean when I talk about moves to prove. I've talk about --

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I think that there is a difference for teachers

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between the abstract of how we see our practice

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and then the concrete reality of it.

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Okay, so I would like you to please bring up your papers.

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I think what video offers for us

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is a certain degree of reality.

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You can't really dispute what you see on the video,

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and there is a lot to be learned from that,

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and there are a lot of ways that we can grow

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as a profession when we actually get to see this.

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I just have a flip camera and a little tripod

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and invested in this tiny little wide-angle lens.

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At the beginning of class, I just perch it

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in the back of the classroom. It's not a perfect shot.

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It doesn't catch every little thing that's going on.

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But I can hear the sound. I can see a lot.

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And I'm able to learn a lot from it.

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So it really has been a simple

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but powerful tool in my own reflection.

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All right, let's take a look at the long one first, okay?

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Once I'm finished taping, then I put it in my computer,

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and then I'll scan it and take a peek at it.

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If I don't write things down, I don't remember them.

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So having the notes is a part of my thinking process,

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and I discover what I'm seeing as I'm writing.

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I really have used it for my own personal growth

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and my own personal reflection on teaching strategy

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and methodology and classroom management,

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and just all of those different facets of the classroom.

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I'm glad that we've actually done the process before

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so we can kind of compare what works, what doesn't.

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I think that video exposes

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so much of what's intrinsic to us as teachers

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in ways that help us learn and help us understand,

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and then help our broader communities understand

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what this complex work is really all about.

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I think it is a way to exemplify and illustrate

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things that we cannot convey in a lesson plan,

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things you cannot convey in a standard,

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things that you cannot even sometimes convey

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in a book of pedagogy.

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Alrighty, everybody, have a great weekend.

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I'll see you later.

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[Every classroom could look like that]

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(Applause)

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Bill Gates: One day, we'd like every classroom in America

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to look something like that.

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But we still have more work to do.

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Diagnosing areas where a teacher needs to improve

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is only half the battle.

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We also have to give them the tools they need

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to act on the diagnosis.

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If you learn that you need to improve

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the way you teach fractions,

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you should be able to watch a video

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of the best person in the world teaching fractions.

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So building this complete teacher feedback

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and improvement system won't be easy.

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For example, I know some teachers

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aren't immediately comfortable with the idea

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of a camera in the classroom.

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That's understandable, but our experience with MET

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suggests that if teachers manage the process,

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if they collect video in their own classrooms,

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and they pick the lessons they want to submit,

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a lot of them will be eager to participate.

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Building this system will also require

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a considerable investment.

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Our foundation estimates that it could cost

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up to five billion dollars.

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Now that's a big number, but to put it in perspective,

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it's less than two percent

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of what we spend every year on teacher salaries.

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The impact for teachers would be phenomenal.

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We would finally have a way to give them feedback,

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as well as the means to act on it.

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But this system would have

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an even more important benefit for our country.

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It would put us on a path to making sure

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all our students get a great education,

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find a career that's fulfilling and rewarding,

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and have a chance to live out their dreams.

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This wouldn't just make us a more successful country.

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It would also make us a more fair and just one, too.

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I'm excited about the opportunity

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to give all our teachers the support they want and deserve.

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I hope you are too.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)