The problem is this: the schools are not turning out properly educated scientists.
We need new teachers, not greater pay for the incompetent ones.
They first must submit to global warming and then your in
I’ll bet your average retired engineer could teach science better than your average science teacher. They ought to figure out a way to bring those guys in.
One word to cure:
Vouchers.
One concept to excel:
Free Market principles.
It is long past time to realize that the Government cannot educate.
That ship sailed long ago - and it is piloted by agenda driven politics.
“...ensure that would-be science teachers know their subjects well...”
And the problem with that, is what exactly? Fewer, less-qualified teachers? Good! Let’em work in the orchards or fields instead of illegal aliens.
The education establishment is not interested in better science teachers, they are interested in continuing to build up the education bureaucracy and increasing education credentialism.
I am a semi-retired engineer. I have an undergraduate and masters degree. I am technically very well qualified to teach high school science or mathematics. I took the same freshman and sophomore chemistry, physics, and math that the guys in those majors took. There are a lot of people like me. It should be a Summer’s worth of classes getting people like me ready for the classroom.
Instead, because of the credentialism hurdles that the education bureaucracy places in the way, it would probably take two college school years of credits, and more in some states, to get to a public school classroom.
My next door neighbor was a math major, she is fully retired (long career at IBM), has looked into this more deeply than I have, and has come to the same conclusion.
my hunch is if you are black or spanish speaking,
those pesky test scores have no relevance to getting hired
It is like that on everything, i wonder if we are going to learn just what the fall of the tower of Babylon really meant,
Public Schools Import Foreign Teachers
In Education Reporter, November 2011
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2011/nov11/foreign-teachers.html
Since the late 1990s there has been a growing trend to import teachers from foreign countries to educate American students. During the 2010 fiscal year, the Department of Labor certified 13,157 foreign workers to teach grades K-12 in American schools.
Schools have been hiring these teachers on temporary work visas such as the H-1B visa and the J-1 visa to teach a diverse array of classes including math, science, foreign language, special education, and physical education.
According to a memorandum by the Center for Immigration Studies, these visas deprive U.S. citizens of thousands of jobs every year in favor of foreign workers from countries such as Philippines, Mexico, India, Columbia, and Canada.
http://www.oregonir.org/alerts/public-schools-import-foreign-teachers
Clearly this proves what fields leftists have a disdain for- the hard sciences.
The teacher’s union will never allow teachers to be paid varying rates according to the subject they teach. Drama teachers must have the same salary as calculus teachers given same seniority, dontcha know.
IMO, STEM teachers need to be paid more, at the expense of other liberal art teachers.
I have taken the math, physical science, physics, and Elementary education Praxis II tests, and passed them all on the first attempt. I was educated in the 70’s and 80’s in public schools and I believe i got a great education. I have seen young teachers attempt the elementary praxis many times and fail it multiple times. These exams are not difficult but these young liberal kids struggle with them. Praxis test prep is a huge industry because so many or our new college grads are so unprepared. They can quote you anything on this social justice crap but they can’t locate a country on a map or perform elementary math problems. Raising the score criteria won’t help with teacher qualification, getting them a real unindoctrinating education will. Our colleges and universities are simply liberal indoctrination centers.
An incompetent science teacher is worse than not teacher.
Being maleducated is worse than being uneducated.
If science teachers were scientists, instead of teachers, there would be less of an issue. Same with math, IMO.
BobL: Please do not post private correspondence.
verga: You might want to consider your language.