Scientist to Teacher in Record Time!

This is the caption on a new local billboard, clearly trying to lure capable technical people into the struggling teaching field. It’s advertising an accelerated program that will cut down the obstacles usually put in place to keep people from getting a state teaching certificate. Also, presumably, this advertising is funded by the US local or state Department of Education with the idea it will solve the problem of not enough capable people willing to teach science and math in the public schools.

This sounds like a wonderful solution—we’ll just invite scientist to come in and they’ll take care of things. But will it work? There are some definite problems with the idea. As usual, it’s a program planned by bureaucrats without much idea of conditions in the classroom, or why scientists don’t seem to have much interest in working as public school teachers.

First, there’s quite a difference in pay between scientific or technical occupations and teaching. A grant for this program funds part time work that pays a pittance during the qualifying period. True, the current high rate of unemployment means there might be a body of unemployed engineers, mathematicians and scientists out there, so maybe some of them will take the offer. Then what?

Scientists and mathematicians are generally task-oriented, rather than people-oriented. This means they have plenty of skills at solving technical problems, but they don’t necessarily have people skills, especially the kind they’ll need in the classroom. There are schools where the students are attentive and well-behaved, with a good background and a real interest in getting a good education, but it’s unlikely there’s a teaching position open at that school. The teaching jobs that are hard to fill are those where students are poorly behaved, failing, often absent, suffering from psychological, emotional or learning disabilities and hostile to anyone suggesting they should work harder so they can graduate. All these problems are expected to be handled by the teacher. It’s not a school administrator’s job to deal with it.

Besides these problems, there’s increasing pressure on teachers to improve student test scores. In order to “improve” teacher qualifications for this, state Departments of Education have imposed onerous requirements, set up bonus programs and resorted to micromanaging what the teachers present. In some cases, teachers are expected to read from an approved script so that all students receive the same approved instruction.

So, what the program is offering is a low paid, difficult job that's supposed to be what? Rewarding because the teacher gets to work with children? A better solution for the lack of science and math teachers is to realize that the demands on teachers are unrealistic, and to improve teaching conditions. A local physics teacher recently quit in the second week of school. “I don’t have to put up with this,” she said. She packed her things and left the students sitting there.

If Math Scores Are Rising, Why Do We Need to Import High Tech Workers?

In the last few years, US schools and teachers are under increasing pressure to raise scores in reading, writing and math. Supposedly this focus on test scores is to make the US high school graduates more competitive in the world jobs marketplace. So, is it working?

Studies show that US test scores are rising, and unemployment is rampant. High tech manufacturing firms are complaining about not having qualified applicants and requesting to hire from overseas. US high school graduates with good math scores are working as cashiers at Walmart. Hmmm, maybe there’s something wrong with the education plan.

Well, there are a couple of things going on. First and foremost, it’s cheaper to hire from overseas. There are logistical problems to moving manufacturing plants to say, Asia, where the labor is cheap, so the latest trend is for companies to build their plant in the US--but then they have to deal with the high cost of labor. This problem can easily be overcome by importing labor that is willing to work for lower wages. Immigrants are willing to bear the high cost of specific technical education in order to hold a job in the US, where monetary exchange rates make their wages seem high.

And next, there’s currently little opportunity for US students with good test scores or even a college degree to find experience or specific technical education to qualify them for the available job openings. Those technical job postings are specific, asking for things like experience with a particular software release, and with the clear expectation that the new employee can start work right now at a high rate of productivity and with no on-the-job training. By insisting on these qualifications, companies ensure that their job openings remain open.

What’s wrong with the education plan is that it isn’t comprehensive enough--it doesn't provide the opportunities. A national focus on reading, writing and math doesn’t do any good unless there is a means to get talented students into the available job positions. Solutions? Tax or other incentives for companies to hire, and if necessary, train US graduates for their job openings. Technical schools that develop relationships with companies to train workers for specific needs. Opportunity for US graduates. Really, without the expectation of good jobs, why should kids bother with all that homework? Social media is much more fun.

Karl Marx, Barack Obama and Free Public Health Care

Here’s an interesting quote from then Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle in 2003, who was addressing the Border Affairs Committee, “Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education?” she said. “Free medical care? Free whatever? It comes from Moscow. From Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart, [but] it's ripping the heart out of this country.”

Ms. Riddle was talking particularly about services to illegal immigrants, but this is a widely applicable quote. The interesting point here is that she thinks socialism was born in Communist Russia. Is the U.S. already so far from the origins of socialism that we don’t remember where it comes from? Do we really not know why is it that we’re offering free public education? Social Security? A welfare safety net? It’s not because the Bolsheviks thought we should.

First, this is a moral choice--presumably where the “tender heart” part comes in--but a certain self-interest in public health and safety play a part, as well. There are services the U.S. citizens will pay for because they don’t want to see the ugly things happen in our community that happen in third world countries. U.S. citizens don’t like the vision of U.S. streets overrun with homeless, uneducated children. They want to have a workforce that can read, write and do basic arithmetic. They want the less fortunate elderly to have a reasonable pension to cover their basic needs. Finally, they want a certain level of public health to control epidemics that would threaten all of us. Think H1N1.

Besides this moral choice, there’s a less obvious cause to engage in public assistance that has somehow gotten buried under our prosperity. Karl Marx wasn’t the only socialist thinker that the terrible working conditions of the Industrial Revolution produced--he was just the scariest. Marx wasn’t Russian, by the way; he was German, and he did have some flaws in his economic theories that caused the Communists to fail in the construction of their socialist utopia. However, Marx did make some extremely acute observations about a widening gap between the rich and the poor, and about how this leads to revolution.

This means that the more fortunate are obliged to take at least basic care of the less fortunate, or else we can go back to the days of those ugly revolutions that the French and the Bolsheviks carried out so they could redistribute the wealth of the aristocrats. Just because the Communist systems of dictatorship and central planning have failed doesn’t mean that revolution can’t still happen when conditions get miserable enough for the poor. It’s just not a good idea to think “It’s not my problem,” because on a lesser scale, there’s just an increase in crime statistics.

This is not to say that the country should offer everything free. It’s already been established in years of the welfare system that too many social services are a disincentive to work. A bad entitlement policy destroys families and erodes the work ethic. Huge taxes drive the wealthy offshore to run their businesses and their investments. Ms. Riddle’s general notion that any system of national entitlements needs to be limited was right, but let’s stick to basic needs, please. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to get some of the fraud out of Medicare before there’s any discussion of a broader free public health system.

But those are general comments. About illegal immigrants: if they’re here and we’re depending on them as part of a low wage labor force, then we need to provide minimal services for them, the same as we would for any other U.S. residents. The low wages that illegal immigrants accept allow U.S. businesses to make higher profits and private employers to save more money. Thus, it’s a cop-out to claim that illegal immigrants are not contributing anything to the U.S. economy. What’s happening is that the businesses and private employers, by paying low wages, are transferring social costs to the taxpayers. Let’s put this into perspective, please.