Lets Outsource Education and get ride of the Teachers Unions
Sep 29th 2006MichaelGeek Stuff
Americans outsource to get cheaper labor for unskilled labor and now we are starting to outsource teaching of basic skills.
The outsourcing trend that fueled a boom in Asian call centers staffed by educated, low-paid workers manning phones around the clock for U.S. banks and other industries is moving fast into an area at the heart of U.S. culture: education.
This is bad.
A New Delhi tutoring company, Educomp Solutions Ltd., estimates the U.S. tutoring market at $8 billion and growing. Online companies, both from the United States and India, are looking to tap millions of dollars available to firms under the U.S. No Child Left Behind Act for remedial tutoring.
Teachers unions hope to stop that from happening.
But you might think the language barrier or accent is bad.
Denise Robison said Taylor had trouble understanding her tutor’s accent at first. “Now that she is used to it, it doesn’t bother her at all,” she said.
Will this be worse than what our Teachers are doing to our students now?
2 Comments »
2 Responses to “Lets Outsource Education and get ride of the Teachers Unions”
Raven on 29 Sep 2006 at Fri 29 September 2006 15:38:22 #
I think the intent here is good. But I don’t think the results we think we’re getting will be good in the long run. Everyone likes to save a buck…or get something for cheap- this is TOO cheap. Educating our kids is the single most important thing we can do as parents. It’s not just to enable our kids to provide for themselves. It’s the future of our country. Do we want to risk all that on cheap tutoring rates? I wouldn’t.
Parents can do better: Hire some smart high school kids to do this. Form an after school tutoring club with a retired teacher- where a group of parents pay a set amount…we did this in my town and it worked out great. When my daughters were in high school I made them volunteer some hours every week towards tutoring middle school kids- it was a great experince for them and it helped our town. Now it’s a part of the PTA stuff here- they have a program set up like this. Everyone is getting what they need:
Kids- are learning GOOD, CORRECT information
Older kids- are learning the value of community service
Parents- get quality tutoring that isn’t expensive
Teachers- get kids who are not falling behind on subjects
Seth on 02 Oct 2006 at Mon 02 October 2006 17:58:40 #
When I was a lad back in 1960s - early 1970s Queens, NY, a lot of teachers used to stay late on their own time to help students who were having problems with learning their subject matter.
Of course, those were times of infinitely more dedicated teachers.