PE 6/17 Bill Gates Speech – Part 3

Discrimination is harder to prove, and people often don’t know what levers to pull to fix the problem. I know from my perspective, school reform is a hard cause to communicate. I’m inspired by the leaders who do it well.

She talked to me about the racial history of the Memphis schools, outlining the obstacles that stand in the way of improvement. She is a strong backer of reform, including our foundation’s teacher initiatives, but she was candid about the challenges.

* stand in the way of: to prevent something from happening
= get in the way of; interfere with; prevent

ex> Don’t try to stand in the way of progress.

* candid: open; frank; honest

ex> My family had a candid discussion with the doctor about my father’s prognosis.

Note> In photography, a “candid shot” is a photo taken informally especially without the subject’s knowledge.

She said that there was pushback, and that she and other school board members were taking a beating in the community. But they took on the challenge of making sure people had information and understood the reason for change.

* take a beating: to lose badly; be physically or verbally attacked

ex> The crooked politician really took a beating in the press last week.

Now they have widespread community support, because Ms. Hart and her colleagues had the skill and passion to make the case.

* make the case: to give reasons why something should be a certain way

ex> Susan made the case to her professor to let her take the test again.

The best school reform ideas in the world won’t make their full impact unless you’re on the ground arguing for change.

* make an/one’s impact: to impress greatly; affect someone or something in a big way

ex> My high school English teacher made a big impact on my life.