Joel Klein, CEO of the Educational Division and Executive Vice President at News Corporation, shared his opinion about the knowledge and skills we need to teach to the future generations. The United States is getting a poor return on its educational investment and Joel pointed out the low score obtained on international tests.

The greatest challenge for all countries is the K-12 education. We need to demand more skills and knowledge, apart from trying to generate innovation into a system that resists innovation at any level. Joel states that the system is broken and suggests five core guiding principles for how it must be transformed.

In January 2011, Joel I. Klein became CEO of the Educational Division and Executive Vice President, Office of the Chairman, at News Corporation. Prior to that, Mr. Klein was Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education where he oversaw a system of over 1,600 schools with 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees and a $22 billion budget. He launched Children First in 2002, a comprehensive reform strategy that has brought coherence and capacity to the system and resulted in significant increases in student performance. He is a former Chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann, Inc., a media company, and served as Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice until September 2000, and was Deputy White House Counsel to President Clinton from 1993-1995. Mr. Klein entered the Clinton administration after 20 years of public and private legal work in Washington, D.C. He attended New York City’s public schools and graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School. He received his BA from Columbia University where he graduated magna cum laude in 1967, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1971, also graduating magna cum laude. He has received honorary degrees from Columbia University, Duke University, Amherst College, Manhattanville College, Georgetown Law Center, Fordham Law School, New York Law School, and St. John’s School of Education. He received the Lewis Rudin Award for Exemplary Service to New York City from New York University for his work as Chancellor.