[Speed Gibson,
Sunday February 5, 2006 at 4:46pm]
70,000 new teachers
That's what President Bush proposed in his 2006 State of the Union speech, specifically 70,000 new mathematics and science teachers over the next five years. It won't happen.
President Clinton's 100,000 new police program actually produced somewhere between 10,000 and 17,000. Most of the money was simply swallowed up by the big city machines, knowing full well that neither the Administration nor the press would verify the results. In fact, both kept using the "100,000 cops" phrase throughout the rest of the 1990's.
The problem with hiring more mathematics and science teachers is that they cost more money than English and Social Studies teachers. Their basic skills are more valuable to private industry, i.e., they can make more money there, often a lot more money. This is anathema to the teachers unions and their equal pay for all subjects contracts. They cannot wander far from their "steps and lanes" pay grades without embracing the idea that market forces, and by extension, merit, must be honored as well.
In Minnesota, our share will be a little over 1,000 new teachers. Where would they come from? They could be education majors that shift their focus to the sciences. But the Education colleges at most universities are their academic ghettos, per economists Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter E. Williams, and others. They have the lowest average SAT scores going in and the lowest average GRE scores coming out. Given the rigors of scientific training, they're just not likely to succeed.
They can be recruited coming out of college, and perhaps the draw of excellent benefits, job security, and long vacations will be appealing to some to the point where they'll pass on that better-paying job at 3M or Medtronic. Again, that doesn't seem likely. Even if they hire on, the call of "real" engineering will have many of these jumping ship later. Several professionals I have worked with over the years did start out as teachers, in fact, and quit because there was no real future in it.
So, again, how do you hire the scientifically over-qualified to use only a fraction of their ability? And in a system that does not reward extra effort or actual results? And with an old-fashioned pension plan - no stock options, no profit sharing, not even a 401K plan?
What's we'll likely see is all that money diverted into "staff development" and "instructional aides" programs. We'll help get your Chemistry teacher a Master's degree, even though what she learns there will be years beyond what the students can understand. The aides will count as the headcount increase.
It may not even be this complicated. After Senator Kennedy writes in all the loopholes, they just might spend the money any way they want, as they are already planning to do with Q-comp.
President Clinton's 100,000 new police program actually produced somewhere between 10,000 and 17,000. Most of the money was simply swallowed up by the big city machines, knowing full well that neither the Administration nor the press would verify the results. In fact, both kept using the "100,000 cops" phrase throughout the rest of the 1990's.
The problem with hiring more mathematics and science teachers is that they cost more money than English and Social Studies teachers. Their basic skills are more valuable to private industry, i.e., they can make more money there, often a lot more money. This is anathema to the teachers unions and their equal pay for all subjects contracts. They cannot wander far from their "steps and lanes" pay grades without embracing the idea that market forces, and by extension, merit, must be honored as well.
In Minnesota, our share will be a little over 1,000 new teachers. Where would they come from? They could be education majors that shift their focus to the sciences. But the Education colleges at most universities are their academic ghettos, per economists Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter E. Williams, and others. They have the lowest average SAT scores going in and the lowest average GRE scores coming out. Given the rigors of scientific training, they're just not likely to succeed.
They can be recruited coming out of college, and perhaps the draw of excellent benefits, job security, and long vacations will be appealing to some to the point where they'll pass on that better-paying job at 3M or Medtronic. Again, that doesn't seem likely. Even if they hire on, the call of "real" engineering will have many of these jumping ship later. Several professionals I have worked with over the years did start out as teachers, in fact, and quit because there was no real future in it.
So, again, how do you hire the scientifically over-qualified to use only a fraction of their ability? And in a system that does not reward extra effort or actual results? And with an old-fashioned pension plan - no stock options, no profit sharing, not even a 401K plan?
What's we'll likely see is all that money diverted into "staff development" and "instructional aides" programs. We'll help get your Chemistry teacher a Master's degree, even though what she learns there will be years beyond what the students can understand. The aides will count as the headcount increase.
It may not even be this complicated. After Senator Kennedy writes in all the loopholes, they just might spend the money any way they want, as they are already planning to do with Q-comp.