With fresh thinking and bold ideas, TED and PBS are hosting a one-hour special with talks about the US high school dropout crisis.

On May 7 at 10pm, PBS will air the very first televised TED event, TED Talks Education. The event, filmed in New York on April 4, brings together an hour of speakers and performers with a deep-rooted passion for education, and a focus on one of the major crises affecting US education right now: kids who don’t finish high school. Students drop out for thousands of reasons. How can we think about the problem?

The first three speakers booked: Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone, plus TED favorites Bill Gates and Sir Ken Robinson — and watch for more announcements in coming weeks of dynamic teachers, speakers and performers to take the stage. The show is set to appear on PBS’ website after the air date, and we’ll let you know more soon.

TED Talks Education will be broadcast nationally in the U.S. and will be produced by WNET in conjunction with TED.  The program is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s American Graduate Program. It promises to be an exciting, thought-provoking hour of television.

Want a preview? After the jump, watch Bill Gates’ fiery, data-packed talk on the US state budgeting system — which, he says, uses accounting tricks to siphon money away from schools and give it to entrenched interests.[ted id=1087]