Problem Needed Math and Science Teachers

Paul Richardson 2012

President Obama has pushed his idea to add 100,000 math and science teachers to improve American performance in the global competition. The problem is that he is assuming that you have the education schools churn out more teachers who are designated as math and science teachers. Anyone who has studied the education schools knows this would only be a for show approach to strengthen teacher union membership and further enrich the education schools. The education schools are concerned with process not subject rigor. Anyone who has a robust knowledge of math and science knows that to teach them to others you must understand the subject. Our education schools do not have the resources to teach subjects. Because of that Rita Kramer in her book Ed School Follies says that our educators are not educated. That is, they have no subject knowledge only process knowledge that is so emphasized by the ed schools. The tragedy is that the process they teach is akin to believing the students can teach themselves through discovery. Our students are wandering in the wilderness while our competitors ALL use the direct instruction process taught by teachers with very strong subject knowledge. Why wouldnt we do the same? The biggest reason is that the adults in education are terrified that the public will discover that all of their ed school training at bachelors and above levels is of no value for the mission they are supposed to serve. Conversion to the system we used before the Progressives anti-curriculum assault on rigor requires a huge upgrade in teacher subject knowledge and the discarding of the education process they were taught in education schools. Thus, the education schools not only dont provide value they actually cause great harm to our students and our nation. This is an Easy-Tough challenge. The easy part is knowing what must be done. The tough part is forcing our education system to do it. Make no mistake the education fiefdom has been so brainwashed in the current failed system that they are incapable of changing on their own. They are delusional, defensive, insular, and inbred which is a terribly effective antichange situation. But we must face it. Only an aroused populace can make it happen because the education schools, school board associations, teachers unions, legislators who receive election money and other support

to buy their support for the status quo all make this a change that has to be forced. Unless we force change we will continue to compete poorly globally. That would continue our decline in the ability to compete for high paying jobs. We are transitioning to a knowledge economy rapidly. The constant strategy of the educators has been to try to reform by doing the wrong things better. That is, they refuse to acknowledge that their system is designed to not work. You will need to conclude on your own why John Dewey and his Progressive buddies designed a system to dumb down our ed system. I believe they thought that a credulous populace would be more likely to accept progressive elite top-down direction. You need to decide for yourself. In looking at the decades of expensive projects that havent helped at all, we must consider that something is very wrong with the foundational underpinnings of the current system. Now to math, what could be done quickly? If we were smart, what a concept, we would take an approach that could begin to improve the math and science experience for kids immediately. I mention science because math is a prerequisite for science study. We hear every day that companies need more visas for foreign workers because we dont have enough domestic engineers available to hire. That is true as far as it goes because while we have a large number of older engineers who are unemployed or underemployed, they lack the latest skills that werent taught when they went to engineering school. This pool of engineers does have significant worth however because they all were trained rigorously in math and science, very far advanced over anything teachers get in education schools. They also were taught with and understand the direct instruction method that is needed to compete with the global competition. So the solution is easy, just hire these engineers to teach our kids math and science. It would require some worthless rules on teacher certification to be waved. This could happen almost immediately if the bureaucratic stranglehold preventing positive change could be removed. The bureaucratic rules are not there to protect the mission of educating kids, they are there to protect a sham operation that harms kids. Since there are millions of engineers in the category mentioned it would be easy to find

100000. It only takes some strong and realistic leadership to make it happen. What are we waiting for? References E.D. Hirsch The Making of Americans; also see his presentation on booktv.org, search on Hirsch to view video The Knowledge Deficit Liping Ma, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics Louisa Moats, Whole Language High Jinks Paul Richardson The Evil Genius, http://www.scribd.com/doc/95169527/The-Evil-Genius A Sick Patient and Human Nature, http://www.scribd.com/doc/46683635/A-SickPatient-and-Human-Nature

Education Schools-When Will We Fix This Travesty?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/83696010/Education-Schools-When