best of myshortpencil

David A DeSchryver / The
Doyle Report
Issue 5.46 – Nov. 18, 2005 / Originally published in Issue 5.23 – 6/8/2005

If the world is
“flat” should we expect schools and districts to outsource instruction?
How you react to this questions [sic] likely parallels your current state of
cynicism, but it’s one that will demand some serious thought in the coming
years. . . .

The question causes audible dismay from most educators. Education is not flat
because schools do not operate as corporations that produce and repair
“widgets” (as in the generic economic term and not related to Apple
“Tiger” OS X). An educator’s work is unique. For example, a teacher cannot
be outsourced, and certainly not off-shored, because it’s a trade based on
personal charisma and individual contact. Successful teachers connect with their
students and vice-versa.

It
is precisely because an educator’s work should be unique that computer-delivered
and/or outsourced instruction is imperative. Why should every child in the
classroom be getting the same instruction at the same pace with the same
homework from a teacher who may not have the information, skills or interest in
what matters most to each student?

As for praising personal charisma, how many teachers lack that and why should
your child have one of these teachers when every lesson can be captivating and
flawlessly presented via a technology unaffected by aches, illnesses, family
concerns, school politics and everything else that detracts from inspiring
lessons?

And in today’s classrooms, how much individual contact contact is there, really?
Moreover, it may be a means to learning but it is far from the only means or
even the most effective means. Celebrating "personal charisma and
individual contact" is like glorifying stagecoaches as standard of
transportational excellence. Well, the stagecoach is no reason to reject
automobiles, trains and airplanes and "personal charisma and individual
contact" are no reasons for rejecting the use of technology and
outsourcing.

How they connect also inhibits the flattening of instruction. Early grade
students cannot be managed through a technology medium.

Somebody
better let Sesame
Street and Blue’s
Clues in on the news.

Late grade students cannot be controlled through a monitor no matter how clear
and attractive the connection.

You
can’t pry students from their monitors and gadgets. Where has this guy been?

The art of personal connection extends to the parents as well. Who in their
right mind would send their child to an institution that outsources its
instruction?

Oh,
I don’t know, maybe someone who wants their child to have access to talents and
skills not possessed by the local teachers?

Only the child of efficiency driven economists, is my best guess, because the
act appears to prioritize budgetary efficiency over safety and an embracing
learning environment.

Absolute
nonsense. Greater efficiency means more programs and services for a given cost.
That’s bad for students, right? Safety? Have you been reading about the
epidemics of bullying,
brawling,
threatening
and assaulting, fornicating
and teacher-student
copulating, let alone the average, everyday disruptions going on in public
schools? Not only is this far from safe, it’s also far from a sound learning
environment.

As it is a poor selling point for parents it is bad protection of the public
good. Schools are government actors and have a duty to provide public education
in a responsible fashion that, at least, assures the safety and welfare of their
children. The outsourcing of instruction would impose large oversight and
management costs on the school. These costs obstruct their ability to check
certification, qualification, and personal backgrounds of those providing the
instruction. The costs and risk of error, then, seem to outweigh the more
familiar and safer hiring and monitoring practices.

The
high costs are in managing and training local staff. Let’s say elementary math
is outsourced to a software program that produces better results on average than
produced in classrooms. How much oversight and management costs are needed for
that?

Finally, teacher unions would never allow it.

And
that’s what this story is really about–crafting a justification for the bigotry
of teacher unions. They may delay advancements for decades in improving academic
outcomes and in delivering education services, but they can’t stop the
advancements from coming.

The above reasons just begin to cover the reasons why outsourcing instruction is
a bad idea – but times and practices change. There are good reasons to believe
that the “flat” world (one of growing economies with millions of qualified,
readily accessible and eager potential employees) will enter the K-12 classroom.

First, the quantity and quality of teachers in the US is not good.

What
good is personal charisma and individual contact if the quantity and quality of
teachers isn’t "good"?

According to the National Education Association the nation is in a “teacher
recruitment crisis.”

The
nation is in a lesson quality crisis that can never be cured through teacher
recruitment.

While student enrollments are rising rapidly, more than a million veteran
teachers are nearing retirement. “Experts predict that overall we will need
more than 2 million new teachers in the next decade.” [1]

Like
"experts" predicted the need for thousands of horses to pull all those
stagecoaches.

Making it worse, the quality of the diminishing pool is troubling. Education
Week put it this way:

Despite universal agreement that teachers should have basic literacy skills
and know the subjects they teach, Quality Counts found states playing an
elaborate shell game. While they set standards for who can enter the
profession on the front end, most keep the door cracked open on the back
end.[2]

In
other words, there’s no effective means for assuring continued competency once a
teacher earns tenure. I personally know teachers who did lots of enriching
activities prior to earning tenure and then promptly terminated them when
granted tenure. Of course, some teachers put everything into their work every
day, but many don’t and there’s no way to prevent teachers from reclining on the
job if they want to. When other professionals slack they get canned. But not for
the workers doing the most important work in the world!

(Do you think the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay plays shell games
with its graduates?)

Second, outsourcing is not a zero-sum matter (the camel-nose-in-the-tent analogy
is more appropriate). No one really thinks that it would replace teachers
outright (yet), but it may make sense to use a proven/reputable program for
tutoring, grading of classroom material, inputting student data into databases
and as a video-conference based virtual-classroom-teacher-assistant. In fact,
there are current examples of success such as the University of Phoenix and
Growing Stars (www.growingstars.com).
[3]

Finally, the technology is available and getting better. In 1995 the Internet
was a peripheral tool. In 2005 it’s central to social and professional lives.
In 2020 it will be beyond our imagination. Interactive,
real-time virtual face to face conversation and interaction is only a few years
away. . . .

Combine the above considerations and it is reasonable to conclude that a future
principle may find the increased teacher-student ratio of a virtual assistant
teacher cost-effective and even attractive to parents who want the best
education the world can offer.

So back to our question: If the world is “flat” should we expect schools and
districts to outsource instruction? Despite the present barriers listed above
– plan for it.

There
were no barriers listed above. They were all lame fabrications.

Thousands if not millions abroad are probably doing so right now.

Endnotes:

[1] National Education Association, “Attracting and Keeping Quality
Teachers,’ http://www.nea.org/teachershortage/index.html,
visited June 3, 2005.

[2] Quality Counts 2000: Who Should Teach? (Education Week: 2000), http://counts.edweek.org/sreports/qc00/,
visited June 8, 2005.

[3] Anupreeta Das and Amanda Paulson, “Need a Tutor? Call India,” Christian
Science Monitor, May 23, 2005, http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0523/p01s01-legn.html,
visited June 8, 2005.

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