Why is America Outsourcing Teaching?

August 20, 10:10 AMEducation Headlines ExaminerAndrea Hermitt

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“Some of the largest users of H-1B visas aren't tech firms or major research universities. Rather, these unlikely users are the nation's public school systems.”  (Ednews.org) 

Baltimore had 196 visas issued to teachers for the 2006-2007 school year.  New York City had 171.  Smaller school districts have a proportionate number of foreign teachers.   

I’m not saying that there isn’t some value in students having teachers with varied backgrounds as they will have something unique to offer to students.  In fact, it seems that many of these teachers are more dedicated than our own.  However, what does it say when our nation cannot produce teachers with a competency level required to teach the next generation? 

 As is mentioned in the article H-1B Visas and Public Schools “School Districts can't count on help from the nation's schools of education. Just 13 percent of 77 education schools surveyed by the National Council on Teacher Quality had high quality math instruction programs… Arthur Levine, the former president of Columbia University's Teachers College, concluded in a 2006 study that 54 percent of the nation's teachers are taught at colleges with low admission requirements.”

If I understand this article correctly, teachers educated by our nation’s schools do not have the credentials necessary to teach in our already failing schools, and so we need to import teachers from the Philippines  and other countries to teach our children.  While most laud this new trend as an opportunity for diversity and cultural exchange, I worry that the cultural and language differences will hinder the education of the students they are trying to help.    Just think about frustration many of us feel while speaking to “Bob” from our local bank.  Personally, I am remembering the first class I failed miserably because I could not keep up with the heavy accent of one of my teachers.

Here are just a few of the experiences of these new teaches as told in a Washington Post article “Lessons Far From Home”.  "The other teachers told me the kids don't understand, 'Be quiet.' They said you have to say 'Shut up.' Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I said, 'Shut up,' “said Mabel, the subject of the story. 

“Sometimes, (Mabel’s Students) didn't understand her. She had been telling them to stand up whenever they had to "recite." .. "They looked at me, 'Huh?' They didn't even know what recite was," Mabel said, not realizing that it was an old-fashioned term.”