«ONE THING I MISS IS THE TIME AMERICA HAD BIG DREAMS ABOUT THE FUTURE»

TORONTO — Harvard University dropout and Microsoft founder Bill Gates and once homeschooled Grammy-winning singer John Legend made a pitch for reforming America's beleaguered public schools.The pair joined David Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") for the international premiere at the Toronto film festival of his latest documentary "Waiting for Superman," which follows five students as they try to navigate a broken US public school system. Gates said he hoped to raise awareness "that the (US) school system is not working well today" and encourage fixes."The global economy requires people to be better educated," he said. In the United States, "We need some real reforms."Gates noted that companies like Microsoft are finding it harder to recruit skilled workers in the United States, and said many local recruits actually immigrated to the United States."If you look at computer science departments in the top (US) schools, the majority (of students) are not US-born. That just says something about our education system," he said. Legend echoed Gates' concerns, saying he cares about making America "a place where no matter where you come from you have the opportunity to succeed." "But in America if you don't have a good education you can't do that."Legend admitted that he was homeschooled for part of his early life, before entering public school. As a gifted student, he later was "put in a track where you're cultivated and invested in," which is not afforded to most students. He went on to graduate from an Ivy League college."I was an exception to the rule at my school, but that doesn't mean the system works, it just means in that very small subset the system worked, which is not nearly enough," Legend said.Most others "don't have that same opportunity to succeed," he said.