Outsourcing American Education

Several California Districts Recruit Teachers From Philippines to Fill Critical Areas.

The Los Angeles Times (3/18, Watanabe) reports that "more than 100 school districts, including at least 20 in California, are recruiting in the Philippines to fill teacher shortages in math, science, and special education." For instance, "The Los Angeles Unified School District has hired between 250 and 300 teachers from the Philippines -- the largest contingent among more than 600 foreign exchange teachers overall, a district official said." Deborah Ignagni, a district human resources administrator, said that LAUSD officials have recruited teachers from the Philippines for years, because "the higher education system is similar, so credits are easily transferable for U.S. teaching credentials." Furthermore, "most Filipinos speak English and can understand some Spanish, which is embedded in the Filipino language as a result of Spain's 300-year colonization of the islands." Meanwhile, Filipino teachers "say they jumped at the chance to work in the United States, lured primarily by far better pay."
This article comes after LAUSD announced they would be laying off hundreds of teachers due to deep budget deficits. So they are firing the Americans and replacing them with scabs from other countries..... (On the other hand -- those poor foreigners are only getting jobs in Inglewood and other areas where an American wouldn't take the jobs. And how could they live off a teacher's salary in California anyway?)
....As if recruiting foreigners to replace our "incompetent" American teachers isn't enough...Obama is trying to push laws to make it easier to fire "bad teachers" which are defined as not having high enough student test scores. They are trying to eliminate tenure and limit contracts to 1 year instead of 5 years. Furthermore, he's trying to impose "merit pay" which would be given to teachers whose students have high test scores. Obama also says the state standardized tests are not hard enough. Fortunately in Texas, due to the high amounts of high school seniors in limbo, the state congress (or whatever you call them) has just passed a law eliminating the requirement of passing the senior TAKS test in order to graduate! Thanks No Child Left Behind!