Importing Teachers

I have a B.S. in Mathematices/Computer Science. I also hold an MBA/Finance. I do not, however, hold a teaching certification, nor have I ever worked as a teacher. Rather, I spent many year working in the field of Infomation technology, designing and implementing computer systems.

Recently, I applied for a job teaching Math in a school district in Texas who is in need of a Math teacher. I was not hired, as the school district opted to hire another English teacher as she had a track record for coaching softball.

School districts are part of the problem, as they are the ones who set their priorities in hiring. There are plenty of highly qualified people to teach math, if the schools would hire them!!

School districts should be excited to have people who have life/work experience outside of the classroom to work as teachers in their schools. Instead, they blame society for not producing enough teachers.

By the way, I live in Chicago, and am willing to relocate to teach math. I can be reached at 312-933-1924.

Hi Dave,

By the way, in this case 'overseas' is nearly synonymous with 'from the Philippines.' For example, the city of Baltimore is staffing their math positions almost exclusively with Philippino teachers. This year 600 or 10 percent of all of their teachers is from the Philippines. But this number is almost purely concentrated in math so almost 100 percent of their math teachers are from the Philippines. This practice of solving the teacher shortage with teachers from the Philippines is extremely detrimental, unsustainable, and will cause future problems down the road.

Here are the problems with importing foreign teachers: 1. Their English is inadequate sometimes to the point of being some sort of creole or pidgeon and they are frequently difficult for the students to understand. This compromises their effectiveness.

2. The practice of importing teachers just like importing any product or service must lead to both a cheapening of pay for the work as well as making the market less attractive to American workers. In other words, the shortage of teachers in urban math is due to the pay not being adequate to the working conditions. Hiring Philippino teachers instead of improving working conditions only signals to potential math teachers that this is a job that is so bad that only desperate third world people are willing to take it. In other words, math teaching has joined the ranks of lettuce-picking, backroom prostitution, house cleaning, dish washing, hotel maid, etcetera. As the practice becomes more widespread and more well-known, it will not go unnoticed by potential math teachers. Who wants to aspire to a job that is so awful for the pay that 1st world educated workers with vocational choices cannot be compelled to do it? Also, it signals to potential math teachers that this is a job they will have a hard time getting because 3rd world workers are being preferentially hired for it. Therefore, this practice will cause fewer people to choose to become math teachers and the shortage may spread beyond urban schools to the point where even the suburban schools cannot find qualified math teachers.

3. This practice of importing desperate 3rd world workers to teach math in America is becoming more widespread. However, there are not enough potential math teachers from the Philippines to solve the shortage problem. But using them at all will increase the shortage (see number 2).

4. Some of the Philippino teachers will find a way to either legally or illegally remain in the United States. They will bring or have children here. Statistically, Philippino children are a hard to teach population like hispanics and blacks. This will add to the degree of the achievement gap in education rather than lessen it. So in exchange for paying a foreign worker instead of employing an American, we will receive in a future generation several children who themselves will likely be academically deficient and who will add to the ranks of academically deficient urban students who are difficult to teach math to.

4. This practice does not give school districts any incentive to improve working conditions for their teachers. On the contrary, school districts will be very comfortable allowing both pay and working conditions to become worse for math teachers because they have gotten a work force that are basically indentured servants with few if any rights. As pay and working conditions stagnate or worsen, fewer Americans will want to be math teachers.

Any reasoning person can see that important foreign teachers to solve the shortage will only create a lethal spiral that will lead to a larger shortage. Hiring desperate, poor, 3rd world, indentured servants for a vocation does not make that vocation appear desirable to educated 1st world people. It clearly and loudly signals that this is a bad career choice. Teaching math in urban schools has for a long time been a bad career choice in terms of working conditions and pay but this was not well known. Importing foreign workers from the third world is like plugging in a flashing neon sign that advertizes to all Americans, "This job is as desirable for you as becoming a migrant lettuce picker. You will not be paid a fair wage for the work because the employers would rather pay desperate immigrants and treat them like dirt than hire an American for this job."

How does this bode well for math education in America?

Thanks for your comments. I do sincerely appreciate your concern as an American citizen. However, I want you to please realise that the greatness of America is due as much to the contribution of foreigners as to other factors. You mentioned that foreign teachers from Countries like the Phillipines are difficult to be understood by the American students. You could be right. But perhaps it is also appropriate to remind you that there are also American teachers abroad who are not easily understood by the natives they teach. Yet those natives are being tolerant enough to appreciate the work those American teachers are doing.

The adage is "One good turn deserves another." If others can put up with those foreign nasal American accent, what is wrong with the other way round?

I read a credible research a few days ago that suggests that American maths teachers are by far weaker in their field by their Asian counterparts, especially the Chinese who took part in the research. The Heads of schools who tend to hire Phillipino teachers and continue to do so are not naive. Perhaps they see what people with a parochial outlook, like yourself, have failed to see.

We now live in a global economy, we can no longer stay in our little coners, undisturbed by foreign invaders, like the Phillipino teachers.

Thanks for your comment all the same.

The practice of importing teachers just like importing any product or service must lead to both a cheapening of pay for the work as well as making the market less attractive to American workers. 642-426 In other words, the shortage of teachers in urban math is due to the pay not being adequate to the working conditions. EX0-101 Hiring Philippino teachers instead of improving working conditions only signals to potential math teachers 642-446 that this is a job that is so bad that only desperate third world people are willing to take it.SY0-101 In other words, math teaching has joined the ranks of lettuce-picking, backroom prostitution, house cleaning,