Math and Science Focus

Always nice to get the word out about ways to solve the math and science teacher shortage in the Fairmont Sentinel.

Reinventing the Wheel

It is interesting that many of the same ideas come around on teacher shortages. One of the favorite is the professionals coming in a few hours a week and teaching math or science. This was a President Bush proposal a few years back through his adjunct teacher corps and Minnesota is the latest to raise the proposal.

Sounds good but it will never work. First – the teacher unions would never allow it because it lets un-certified teachers in the classroom. Second – well, if the unions would never allow it, you don’t need a second reason because they hold too much power. But for the sake of argument, teaching requires a lot of on the job experience before you can really impact your students. So teaching part time, without any training, means you would probably never become all that effective.

If you want professionals in the classroom, then have a program (hint: ABCTE is one) that actually attracts professionals. Using an efficient program like ours means that they still get training, they still get certified and we get the professional engineers, math experts and scientists that we so desperately need.

So stop trying to reinvent the wheel – use the wheels that are already here.