There is no panacea for improving them, but there is a conclusive body of research that provides good direction. We are losing too many students, students who start high school as freshmen and drop-out, or skate by gaining few skills and little knowledge. Creating smaller, more personalized learning environments where every student is held to high expectations works.
Students stay in school, are more motivated and achieve at higher levels.
The principal challenge we face is to close that gap. When I first learned about world health, I have to say that I was kind of stunned. I half expected that the United States and other governments and foundations were really taking these low cost interventions and saying that the value of life is the same throughout the world and really focusing on that problem. And so, in the midst of this impossible situation, you evaluate the assets and tools at your disposal, and conclude that never has this Assembly, as a group, faced such an impossible problem and at the same time, never have you had so much power to change forever the future health of the world. Glaring gaps that are growing between the deprivation mothers and children in the developing world face and the abundance and efficiency that define our way of life.