Thomas Friedman on education: 'There is no secret'

Making a career change into teaching -- at the grade school to high school level -- is easy for highly educated folks?

Where?

What's the process?

 

Nine months. You could knock your old lady up, and become a teacher while you wait for her to pop.

http://www.ccsj.edu/academics/graduate/ttot/index.html

 

The biggest barrier is the lack of jobs. Because there's so little turnover, there aren't many jobs available.

 

Here in Texas you can start teaching almost immediately and pursue your credential simultaneously. You ain't going to be teaching in some tony suburban high school, but then again, if you're smarter than the average education major, that's a win-win!

 

2.1 percent unemployment rate, according to this liberal Web site:

http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/infographic/2011/11/unemployment-rates-occupations-comparable-to-teaching

 

Well, not me. Thankfully, despite the low standards, America is smart enough to prevent me from becoming a teacher in nine months.

As for the esteemed Calumet College of St. Joseph's program, I would need job placement numbers to make any kind of evaluation on how easy it is.

 

I'll look for them as soon as you supply some numbers that prove that there is a batallion of 1600 SATers being blocked from teaching. This evidence is mildly important, as this assumption is the premise of every policy argument you have ever proferred on this topic.

 

One year:

http://education.indiana.edu/license-development/licensing/transition.html

 

How do you get included in the numbers?

Surely there are few unemployed teachers -- because they never get fired! And, of the few that do, many leave the profession. If you get fired as a teacher, you're pretty much unemployable as a teacher.

 

Yes, and obviously that's why the Hannity Foundation tossed that up there.

I don't know if it counts the hundreds of thousands of fresh graduates left holding the bag after they eschewed their shot at a career curing cancer for a shot at teaching eighth-grade algebra, unawares of the conspiracy of the insidious teachers' union to keep them out.

 

Perhaps we could move on from this? Let's get back to China ... and the esteemed Mr. Friedman's rather-late recognition that, quelle surprise, there's no secret?

 

Let's assume the cancer curing doctor, who scored 1,600 (or is it 2,400 now) on the SAT isn't going to become a teacher.

OK. Fine.

How do we get better teachers. Teachers from better colleges, with a better education, who graduated higher in their class?

Is starting salary the problem? If it is, how high does it need to be, and how do we keep the worst performing teachers from sticking around and getting a big raise, all while providing the same level of competence?