Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ames!elroy!scgvaxd!trwrb!trwspp!spp2!urban
From: urban@spp2 (Mike Urban)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: CAN WE KNOW SO LITTLE?
Message-ID: <1372@spp2.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jul 88 15:06:24 GMT
Sender: news@spp2.UUCP
Reply-To: urban@spp2 (Mike Urban)
Organization: TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 40

In article <24100@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> wlieber@teknowledge-vaxc.UUCP writes:
>
>...  Is it not a fact, that in the Graduate Record Exminations
>(the GRE's), as a group, prospective teachers, place, ANNUALLY, second
>to the BOTTOM in scores, (and always way below the third worst group?)
>Teachers are ahead, of all the academic disciplines, ONLY of students going 
>into religious training!
>
>Start there with the standards for the teaching profession- new math, it is 
>felt, failed  because the TEACHERS were not capable of scoping its value, 
>and could not convey what the mathematicians were justly trying to give 
>to the children, right?

Beware of careless analysis here.  By confusing cause and effect, you
are concluding that the problem is that standards for teachers are too
low.  If standards were raised, you might find yourself with no
teachers at all.  Why?  Because the excellent, the truly knowledgable,
are lost to better paying careers in other industries.  I know someone
who holds a MS in Computer Science; his writing, teaching, and
communication skills are excellent (according to people who have taken
classes from him and read his writing), he has a better than average
knowledge of a broad range of fields including mathematics, science,
history, and literature, and he would love to teach.

But he cannot afford a teaching career--he would have to take a 60% cut
in his current yearly technician's salary if he accepted an entry-level
teaching position (to say nothing of the time and money spent going
back to school to get a teaching credential).

Until we find some way to lure excellent individuals into the teaching
profession, all the `high standards' in the world are not going to help.

Incidentally, I have removed the cross-postings to misc.legal, soc.women,
soc.men, news.admin(???) and talk.politics.  


   Mike Urban
	...!trwrb!trwspp!spp2!urban 

"You're in a maze of twisty UUCP connections, all alike"