Why so they can push the AGW hoax more? Paper or plastic anyone?
You don’t expect them to actually teach science now do you?
how about: let’s pay students if they actually learn math and science
Let’s see in the primary grades of most states technology and science is not even tested, or taught, except when parents voluntarily contribute for special lessons, instructors and equipment.
My impression is that the focus of academia now is NCLB, and the basics of reading and math.
How about NO. Not as long as they work for government schools and teach things like global warming and 2+2 means whatever you feel like.
Poring more money into a broken system isn’t going to fix it.
And combat pay for having to deal with fundamentalists who think religious belief trumps scientific evidence.
Seriously, without a grounding in math and science this country will go downhill quickly. We are getting by now on imports for the most part. When the brain drain starts going the other way we've pretty much had it. The economy will follow.
And the fundamentalists keep pushing for science to be taught their way. Perhaps they should investigate the causes for the decline of Arab science about six centuries back--a decline from which they have yet to recover.
That's discriminatory! If one teacher gets more pay, then all teachers should get more pay.
That's the Obama/ American way!
In the District of Columbia, it costs in excess of $1 million to graduate a single student who is proficient in math or science from the public school system.
How much failure and how much wasted money must we experience before we will admit the public school model is BROKEN? The only way to attract and retain good teachers of whatever subject, is to structure schools so there is a business case for it. This means schools that are private and for profit. This means having just as free a market in children's education as we have for children's shoes.
It is the same with math and science teachers. Education schools do not produce the best math and science teachers. (Most teachers (of this generation)majored in education because it was the easiest major, not because they were blessed with a math-mind or loved science as a kid.)
Pay them more, based on how well they pass certain tests, not simply because of their title.
A wide body of research has consistently identified teacher quality as the most important means within a school’s control to improve student learning.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
There is a simple solution:
Require **all** government teachers to take and pass Calculus with a “C”, and they should sit side by side in the **same** courses as the math and science majors.
Do that and the overall IQ and competence of all government teachers would immediately improve.
As it is now, I doubt many government teachers could pass the GED ( for high school drop outs) math exam even if given a month or two to prepare. If government teachers are incompetent in math, then they subtly and overly communicate their antipathy to their students.
We pay our politicians more every year and we get worse, not better, representation.
In general, its not the funding - Schools have had Humongous increases in money thrown at them for years without noticable improvement.
They spend it on more teachers to reduce class size and work load, higher admin pay to the same people who are running failing schools, new schools with more computers, bigger staff lounges, more day care centers, more elaborate medical facilities, a bigger free breakfast and lunch program, more remedial classes for illegals, more spanish classes for english speaking students and more staff and teacher travel.
And yet the next year they always ask for more.
But they never change the curricula to eliminate politically correct nonsense and add more stringent math, science, history and grammer.
In my area school enrollment has dropped the last two years, which surprised almost everyone. It seems that many illegals have left and taken their kids with them.
So the school board is now asking for more money because lower enrollment equals lower federal subsidies. When enrollment increased every year they asked for more money because they had more students to feed and teach.
Their only answer to every problem and change is more money.
First, we need to open up teaching math and science to people with degrees in the actual subject, rather than in education. Heck, while we’re at it, let’s do the same for English, foreign languages, history, drama, . . .
Then, and only then, will paying teachers more actually be useful.
I’m sorry, but I see ed majors in my university mathematics classes—about 15% dedicated idealistic folk, and 85% ditzes who picked the ed major because it was the easiest on campus—and until the state-granted monopoly given to ‘Colleges of Education’ to produce teachers is broken, neither more pay, nor breaking the teachers union, nor even a merit-based pay scale, will do much to improve K-12 education.
When my father was in high school in the 1940’s all of his HS teachers had masters degrees in the subjects they taught, and a few had Ph.D.’s.
no rocket scientist gets every weekend, every holiday, "curriculum" days,spring break, and entire summers off, let alone sick time and personal time to boot....
lets get real here....
maybe a better approach to having better qualified and better prepared teachers is to actually require them to major in something besides "education"....
These statistics are from the Trends In International Math and Science study produced by the Dept of Ed. The full report is posted on their website as a PDF and may be viewed by clicking here.
Look up US student scores by demographic. Then cross reference that against the demographic that educationally successful places like Japan and Singapore don't have.
People with an IQ of 88 aren't going to succeed in logically based fields. No matter how much you pay their teachers.
Look at the research he cites: Harvard University economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz convincingly show that the economic and political dominance of the U.S. throughout the twentieth century was based on its better-educated workforce, which could create and swiftly adapt to new technologies.
Now were we creative and adaptive because we were well-educated, or were we well-educated because we were creative and adaptive?
But never mind that question. The author doesn't cite any stats showing a shortfall in science jobs. Fortunately, Business Week does.
The Science Education Myth: Forget the conventional wisdom. U.S. schools are turning out more capable science and engineering grads than the job market can support
"Michael Teitelbaum, vice-president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which, among other things, works to improve science education, says this research highlights the troubling weaknesses in many conventional policy prescriptions. Proposals to increase the supply of scientists and engineers rapidly, without any objective evidence of comparably rapid growth in attractive career opportunities for such professionals, might actually be doing harm."
"the new report showed that from 1985 to 2000 about 435,000 U.S. citizens and permanent residents a year graduated with bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in science and engineering. Over the same period, there were about 150,000 jobs added annually to the science and engineering workforce. These numbers don't include those retiring or leaving a profession but do indicate the size of the available talent pool. It seems that nearly two-thirds of bachelor's graduates and about a third of master's graduates take jobs in fields other than science and engineering."
A good citizenry needs training in basic grammar, logic, rhetoric, and history to see through the shennanigans of its leaders. A minimal arts education will also expose manipulative Hollywood techniques, while physical education will train students to be strong and helpful in their community and, for the boys, in the armed forces.
All these areas are
I know people with hard science degrees but they are required to pursue a teaching certificate in order to teach in a publik skuul.
This is never going to happen till the teachers union is gone. The teacher’s union is all about protecting BAD teachers. If they were good teachers would they still need a union?
Stop beating the "money will fix education" dead horse already!
It just. Doesn't. Work.