america lacks math teachers - India to the rescue

[donsu]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GG26Df03.html

US - math tutors = India + $

One more area of outsourcing is about to take off in India - online math tutoring. In a recent feature, The Wall Street Journal ascribed two reasons for this curious trend. First, US students are faring poorly in mathematics, with American 15-year-olds ranked 24th among 29 industrialized countries in a study of mathematics skills released last year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Second, there is an acute shortage of math teachers in the US.

The shortage of math teachers is attributed to the low regard for the profession, dismal pay and high turnover. It is estimated that there is a requirement for over half a million teaching instructors in the US, with a particular crunch in math and sciences. According to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a third of new teachers in the United States leave the profession within three years, and half leave after five. According to the American Association of Employment in Education, nearly 40% of US high schools reported difficulty in filling openings this year with qualified instructors for mathematics.

One way to plug this shortage is to employ teachers from countries such as India, which the US administrators have been trying to do in the past few years. The other is the online way, using sophisticated software and high-speed connectivity that allows a teacher sitting in an Indian town to help in the homework of a 15-year-old in the US. American school administrators have been flying down regularly to India to hire teachers at salaries considered low in the US. However, in keeping with the e-era, teachers are now available even cheaper as no relocation cost is involved.
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words fail me

[DBoon]

1. Wait until they start telling schoolchildren in India

to eat their lunch because of all the starving children in America.

[wurzel]

2. Without discipline nothing can be learned or taught. We have none.

[coloradodem2005]

3. Don't get me started.

[MountainLaurel]

4. Result of the Religious Reich takeover?

Or has science never really been respected in this country, with its long and proud tradition of anti-intellectualism.

I'm also wondering if Carl Sagan mentioned this possibility in "Demon-Haunted World."

[DBoon]

5. Science has never been respected

being interested in science is a quick ticket to getting beat up in most schools.

[Tux]

6. Science and respect

Goes hand in hand in America if it leads to more weapons and more gadgets.