Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
Part of our problem is that the development of 'education for all' has historically happened in the economic climate where the great need was to convert surplus farm-labour into industrial workers. Thus the sort of things that were considered essential to a 'good education' was the sort of things that may you _employable_. (Before then, a huge number of people didn't have _jobs_, simply a huge amount of work they needed to do. Housewives are in a similar position today.) For better and for worse, this has produced an educational infrastructure which is driven by the demands of the employers on soon-to-become workers. This works fairly poorly when combined with advanced high-technology consumerism. What happens when what your potential employers want most from the soon-to-be workers is 'to not have to employ them at all'? As long as consumers keep spending, that is their only real value. This is decidedly at variance with historical precident, where one's value was as a _producer_, and where consumption merely happened to balance the books, so to speak. (_Lack_ of consumption mattered, in that if you produced something that nobody wanted, you would end up with surplus stock, and the indication that something was terribly wrong with your business model. Or maybe the harvest was extra good this year ) Scarcity was the norm. Forgetting the problems of 'my factory won't scale' and 'my product is so expensive that I have very few potential customers', you could build a working business model based on the idea that you could sell all that you could produce. Thus converting all the farm workers into producers made sense. But with prosperity came an end to scarcity. The first manufacturers ran into it when they discovered that the cost in transportng their good to new customers made their prices uncompetitive. At this point in time, improvements in transportation technology drove the ability of large firms to increase their markets. Current technology is so advanced that you can pick up raw materials from Canada, ship them to South East Asia, make cars out of them, and ship the cars back. It is one big global market now. The attempts to sell in China is the pushing back of the last -- admittedly huge -- frontier. But the upshot of all of this is that scarcity is over. The market in goods and services are saturated with offerings. It doesn't do you any good to make any more, since all you will do is waste money and add to the glut. Indeed, you are better off spending your money in advertising, trying to promote averice, and 'stimulate demand'. And where human beings really shine is at unskilled labour. If you invest heavily in touch screens and bar code readers, you can lower the skills needed for a checkout clerk. But they are cheaper than robots at picking up goods and passing them over the sensors. And it makes sense to pay them, at rates which exceed the value of the service they provide. You just pass on their costs onto the price of the goods. Because what keeps this over-balanced system running at all is amount of circulation that the money does. Impoverishing the check out clerks to the point where they can no longer function as consumers does not serve the interests of the market as a whole. But this means that the whole 'what is the purpose of education' question is in serious need of revision. It used to be that preparing people for productive lives was enough. These days a productive life may not be what is wanted. Perhaps a meaningful one would be a better goal to strive for. Laura ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
I find Laura's analysis of social and educational trends to be insightful and accurate, but it doesn't go quite far enough in exploring the question what is the purpose of education in today's society? I find this to be on-topic, as it gets at the root of why I wrote a programming textbook for teenage youth, instead of all the other things I could have done with my spare time. I'll only speak for U.S. society as that is what I know; all others apply whatever fits. In addition to the trend of mindless consumerism that Laura described so well, there have been two additional trends contributing to changes in education: the weakening of family (parental) influence and the growing role of schools as the tool of social engineering. The family: Since the early 1900s women have been given the additional role of working jobs outside the home as well everything they do inside the home. Public schools now assume the role of babysitter and caregiver, at the expense of education. Also there is a growing trend of children being raised without fathers; the resulting social and behavioral problems of children are an additional burden on schools, further hindering education. Social engineering: Everyone who wants to change the world starts by trying to get control of the public schools so as to influence young minds in their direction. I have noticed even on this list many wanting to get Python/whatever into the official curriculum; it seems so much easier to get one small group of government officials to push your agenda than to pursuade parents and teachers. Unfortunately, the public schools then become the battleground of ideologies, in the same way that government-run media becomes the first target of any would-be revolutionary junta. Politics rules the schools, and education suffers. With all of this going on, it is a wonder that anyone learns anything useful in school. Indeed, I have memories even from my elementary school days of feeling that my time was being wasted, that I could be learning a lot more and a lot faster, and that I was just being babysat. So where do I fit in here? I'm trying to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. I don't have grandiose ideas about changing the course of world events, but I think each one of us can change the lives of individuals around us. I was greatly benefited by mentoring from engineers as a teenager. I'm just trying to give back, by trying to give my own children and others the same opportunities that I had. We on this list are mostly self-taught, independent-minded people. We believe that people *can* rise above mindless consumerism, that they can do something significant. I believe that young people (and all people) are capable of doing a lot more with their minds than what they currently do; that's why I believe that they can learn, among other things, programming with Python. David H. On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 03:26:16PM +0200, Laura Creighton wrote: Part of our problem is that the development of 'education for all' has historically happened in the economic climate where the great need was to convert surplus farm-labour into industrial workers. Thus the sort of things that were considered essential to a 'good education' was the sort of things that may you _employable_. (Before then, a huge number of people didn't have _jobs_, simply a huge amount of work they needed to do. Housewives are in a similar position today.) For better and for worse, this has produced an educational infrastructure which is driven by the demands of the employers on soon-to-become workers. This works fairly poorly when combined with advanced high-technology consumerism. What happens when what your potential employers want most from the soon-to-be workers is 'to not have to employ them at all'? As long as consumers keep spending, that is their only real value. This is decidedly at variance with historical precident, where one's value was as a _producer_, and where consumption merely happened to balance the books, so to speak. (_Lack_ of consumption mattered, in that if you produced something that nobody wanted, you would end up with surplus stock, and the indication that something was terribly wrong with your business model. Or maybe the harvest was extra good this year ) Scarcity was the norm. Forgetting the problems of 'my factory won't scale' and 'my product is so expensive that I have very few potential customers', you could build a working business model based on the idea that you could sell all that you could produce. Thus converting all the farm workers into producers made sense. But with prosperity came an end to scarcity. The first manufacturers ran into it when they discovered that the cost in transportng their good to new customers made their prices uncompetitive. At this point in time, improvements in transportation technology drove the ability of large firms to increase their markets. Current technology is so
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
Maybe you are trying too hard. In my mind, I am only stating the obvious. But you *always* seem to think you're stating the obvious. That's probably why it's so hard to understand you. And wondering why it seems to have become acceptable and common to ignore it. Maybe you are looking for more than the obvious. Maybe, maybe... I'd be concerned if just one or two big companies felt they could hijack and control our curriculum, but having thousands upon millions of competing firms hawking their education-relevance doesn't so far bother me. Are there thousands upon millions of firms in a position to compete with Microsoft, Disney and IBM? Certainly. Because these stock market ticker decals you mention have a way of going up and down in an ocean of others, which also go up and down. In education, being a really small company is what's ultra cool. Because your students think they might want to be private, independent entrepreneurs like you someday. More fundamentally, when was it that we decided that the kind of market forces which work to bring us ketchup, work to bring us education. The U.S. - perhaps the most free-market force ever - had, until the technological disruption, understood the importance of making one very fundamental exception to the general rule that the markets rule - and that has been in education. Do you want to cite some sources here? IBM is not in the ketchup business. It has committed to supporting the Linux kernel, which got SCO all excited because surely ownership of the Unix trademark counts for something (unless that's Novell's). But no, it's hours of original man hour that counts, and geeks have their memories, their lore, their admiration structures. They know the Linux of today is no cheap rip off of some ancient Bell Labs source code (which was actually pretty cool, but that didn't rub off on SCO). In adding to the kernel, IBM is acting in an educational capacity as well. It's a two way street however: it was an eye-opener for IBM lifers to get it about open source culture. The point of all this smalltalk: where've you been Arthur? We who bring you ketchup bring you all that engineering you pay for and enjoy. Your car, your skyscrapers, your computer. Since when aren't we in the education business? We taught you all you know. Bucky had a name for us: the Grunch. And I think that is largely because it has been understood that there has to be decisions as to what education *is* before it - education - can be accomplished. And it has been understood that it would be irresponsible to let the markets *define* education. That wisdom is in grave jeopardy. As we see, the market defines education as - what it can deliver. Perhaps it's not. Art But a lot of those IBM lifers and open source snake charmers, perl divers, gemologists and so on, went to schools to learn CS, and still recognize names like Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Caltech... and so on. Behind the big name companies are the big name schools, and cool little ones, less well known, but with dynamite reputations among disciplined insiders. Are these the institutions you think are being usurped by the free market? But they're still players too, and usually get major influence over alumni, well before the employers do. I don't think Princeton feels eclipsed by any market force -- not even Microsoft. I think IBM and Microsoft and any number of education-minded firms, should rev their engines as much as they like in the we're helping kids learn marketing department. Then back up those claims by delivering the goods or take your hit on the big board. It's not like the universities will thereby become slaves to corporate masters, nor even that government agencies will bow out of providing training. Private individuals have tremendous impact as well, acting as authors, creative geniuses. Just look at Harry Potter. Bugs Bunny did more to educate America than most. He had a few people behind him, not millions, yet our media culture has indeed millions of these powerful stars (consider cartoon figures alone, not forgetting Pokeman). So no, I'm not worried that IBM will eclipse the vast forest of other trees that is our Education Planet. Nor do I have any problem with IBM standing strong and tall for a long while, the way trees tend to do. Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
From: Laura Creighton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 9:26 AM To: Arthur Cc: edu-sig@python.org Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL Part of our problem is that the development of 'education for all' has historically happened in the economic climate where the great need was to convert surplus farm-labour into industrial workers. I don't know, Laura. You paint a coherent picture. But one considerably more clinical than anything I can relate to from my own frame of reference. And in that sense cynical. In these kinds of discussions I find it difficult and unwise to move outside my own frame of reference - what I know first hand. As a historian or economist I have nothing to contribute. As an observer - and a decent one, I think - perhaps I do. Some good ol' (perhaps unexpected) flag waving: I am one generation away from your not wanted here, nothing but the shirts on our backs, arrival here through Ellis Island. From there it's been right out the civic books, the ones we are supposed to be too sophisticated and cynical to take seriously. Opportunity. Reward for hard work. Recognition for merit. No limits. None. My older sister has fun from time to time introducing me to people you read about in history books, or will. She might be one herself. And in the middle of this - and essential to it - has been free public education, with enough high-minded people contributing enough high-minded effort to move my friends and family along in no particularly direction beyond that which we have had the opportunity to chart for ourselves. *That* is why I get emotional at threats to it - perceived or real. Art Thus the sort of things that were considered essential to a 'good education' was the sort of things that may you _employable_. (Before then, a huge number of people didn't have _jobs_, simply a huge amount of work they needed to do. Housewives are in a similar position today.) For better and for worse, this has produced an educational infrastructure which is driven by the demands of the employers on soon-to-become workers. This works fairly poorly when combined with advanced high-technology consumerism. What happens when what your potential employers want most from the soon-to-be workers is 'to not have to employ them at all'? As long as consumers keep spending, that is their only real value. This is decidedly at variance with historical precident, where one's value was as a _producer_, and where consumption merely happened to balance the books, so to speak. (_Lack_ of consumption mattered, in that if you produced something that nobody wanted, you would end up with surplus stock, and the indication that something was terribly wrong with your business model. Or maybe the harvest was extra good this year ) Scarcity was the norm. Forgetting the problems of 'my factory won't scale' and 'my product is so expensive that I have very few potential customers', you could build a working business model based on the idea that you could sell all that you could produce. Thus converting all the farm workers into producers made sense. But with prosperity came an end to scarcity. The first manufacturers ran into it when they discovered that the cost in transportng their good to new customers made their prices uncompetitive. At this point in time, improvements in transportation technology drove the ability of large firms to increase their markets. Current technology is so advanced that you can pick up raw materials from Canada, ship them to South East Asia, make cars out of them, and ship the cars back. It is one big global market now. The attempts to sell in China is the pushing back of the last -- admittedly huge -- frontier. But the upshot of all of this is that scarcity is over. The market in goods and services are saturated with offerings. It doesn't do you any good to make any more, since all you will do is waste money and add to the glut. Indeed, you are better off spending your money in advertising, trying to promote averice, and 'stimulate demand'. And where human beings really shine is at unskilled labour. If you invest heavily in touch screens and bar code readers, you can lower the skills needed for a checkout clerk. But they are cheaper than robots at picking up goods and passing them over the sensors. And it makes sense to pay them, at rates which exceed the value of the service they provide. You just pass on their costs onto the price of the goods. Because what keeps this over-balanced system running at all is amount of circulation that the money does. Impoverishing the check out clerks to the point where they can no longer function as consumers does not serve the interests of the market as a whole. But this means that the whole 'what is the purpose of education' question is in serious need of revision. It used to be that preparing people for productive lives was enough.
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
In a message of Fri, 07 Oct 2005 09:52:09 PDT, Kirby Urner writes: snip In education, being a really small company is what's ultra cool. Because your students think they might want to be private, independent entrepreneurs like you someday. This might be a better model for a general education -- instead of training people to be factory workers, we might try training them to be small business owners and entrepreneurs. It would certainly be an interesting way to build a curriculum. Laura ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
In a message of Fri, 07 Oct 2005 09:52:09 PDT, Kirby Urner writes: snip In education, being a really small company is what's ultra cool. Because your students think they might want to be private, independent entrepreneurs like you someday. This might be a better model for a general education -- instead of training people to be factory workers, we might try training them to be small business owners and entrepreneurs. It would certainly be an interesting way to build a curriculum. Laura Yes. Here in Portland we have a new charter school working through the bureaucracy, trying to set up on just this model: a high school that turns out entrepreneurs, ready for college, but also ready to go into business (maybe in part to pay for college). Koreducators.org is the org behind it. I testified at the hearing, have been invited to do so again. Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Laura Creighton To: Kirby Urner In a message of Fri, 07 Oct 2005 09:52:09 PDT, Kirby Urner writes: snip In education, being a really small company is what's ultra cool. Because your students think they might want to be private, independent entrepreneurs like you someday. This might be a better model for a general education -- instead of training people to be factory workers, we might try training them to be small business owners and entrepreneurs. It would certainly be an interesting way to build a curriculum. That *is* the education we got - or what many I know were able to make of it. Thinking about it - I am the only one in my immediate family, for 3 generations, that has ever drawn a paycheck for an extended period from a profit making organization. Either they have run their own small businesses or worked for non-profits - religious or secular. And only my grandmothers *didn't* work - for money. I eventually got out of the affiliated life. And devoting some energy to learning Python was indirectly connected to getting me out. The other Python connection that comes to mind: I happen to know that Guido's old boss at CNRI was out of the same free City College that was my father. I remember that because I had noticed it on his bio and used it as a schmooze point when I had written to him as part of the campaign to do what needed to get done to have JPython freed up when Guido left there. A free City College that produced more than its fair share of Laureate level scientists. Though that was certainly not my Dad's crowd - his being more the jock/mid-brow/prepare me for small business crowd. For which that college provided an enormously effective curriculum. Which is the kind of fact *within* my frame of reference that conspires to make me more the reactionary than the visionary. Why is it so important to not look more admiringly at the past, in mapping the future? Beyond - of course - the fact that suggesting such tends to make one sound like a dolt. I have reached the blissful state of non-affiliation. And can afford not to care that he sounds like a dolt. The affiliated world more respects the visionary, who knows we have had it all wrong for all time. We need new paradigms, of course. We buy into to his program - and in three month he has skipped town. Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
-Original Message- From: David Handy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 12:10 PM To: Laura Creighton Cc: Arthur; edu-sig@python.org Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL Unfortunately, the public schools then become the battleground of ideologies, in the same way that government-run media becomes the first target of any would-be revolutionary junta. Politics rules the schools, and education suffers. I understand the point, but think that stating it the way that you do implies the possibility of a better alternative. I myself am a reformed school voucher, get the government off our back kind of guy. Personal frame of reference - My youngest first cousin - the product of the identical public schools as myself - ends up in an Iowa city because of her husband's university affiliation, spends 2 years as a desperately out-of-place New Yorker and 2 years later wins the election as head of the city's School Board, with no particular agenda beyond - let's make things work the best we can within the limits of available resources and accommodating diverse sensibilities on topics of sensitivity as best we can. Its legit. And I guess that if Microsoft wants to undertake a campaign to suggest that their business agenda and the realization of my son's potential are cosmically related, I should, since I don't particularly admire the organization welcome their right to spend good money to make themselves LOOK RIDICULOUS. Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
Just a footnote to signal Arthur's concerns were both timely and topical. Grunch was indeed moving to shake things up in the education sector. And in PDX news of the day: OMSI was partnering with television to make cartoon production a featured exhibit (and implicitly a kid-friendly recruiting exhibit -- the sciences want people too, and deserve good ones). Kirby Abbreviations: OMSI = Oregon Museum of Science and Industry; PDX = Portland, OR; Grunch = GRUNCH as in Gross Universal Cash Heist as in 'Grunch of Giants' a book by RBF; OR = Oregon; RBF = R. Buckminster Fuller, R = Richard. === NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF STATE SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS COALITIONS News Brief #3285 Category: Business Role in Education TITLE: Companies Unveil Projects to Improve Math, Science Learning Two major corporations are investing millions of dollars in programs intended to improve math and science learning. The General Electric Foundation will distribute $100 million in grants over the next five years to raise math and science scores in up to five school districts. The Jefferson County, Kentucky school district is the first to receive a $25-million grant. The district plans to use the money for a new districtwide curriculum, additional professional development, and community engagement efforts. The IBM International Foundation will pay college tuition costs for up to 100 employees who want to train as math and science teachers. In order to participate in the Transition to Teaching program, employees will have to have a bachelor's degree in math or science (or a higher degree in a related field), some teaching experience, and at least 10 years of employment at IBM. The U.S. Department of Labor has predicted a 51-percent increase in jobs related to science, engineering and technology between 1998 and 2008. More than a quarter-million secondary math and science teachers will be needed by the 2008-09 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education. SOURCE: Education Week, 28 September 2005 (p. 06) WEBSITE: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/09/28/05ibm.h25.html The NASSMC Briefing Service (NBS) is supported in part by the International Technology Education Association and Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education. Briefs reflect only the opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the source articles. Click http://nbs.nassmc.org to SUBSCRIBE, COMMENT, or FIND archived NBS briefs. Click http://www.nassmc.org for information about NASSMC. Permission is granted to re-distribute NBS briefs in unmodified form, including header and footer. ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
And I guess that if Microsoft wants to undertake a campaign to suggest that their business agenda and the realization of my son's potential are cosmically related, I should, since I don't particularly admire the organization welcome their right to spend good money to make themselves LOOK RIDICULOUS. Art Microsoft already has a track record. KPL is not the first move in any chess game. It's like the 45th or 46th. Look at the 'Magic School Bus' series of CD ROM titles, the encyclopedias. Yes, it's less involved with direct teaching of CS and job-related skills, but Ms. Frizzle is a recruiter nonetheless, for a way of life, an attitude towards science (embrace it, get messy). For older people, there's Microsoft University and MCSE. I'm not extolling, not trying to hype MSFT or IBM, just pointing out the obvious: given a big computer company and a huge target market of people wanting to someday be desirable as coworkers in Silicon Valley, Redmond, wherever, it's not surprising that a relationship develops. We see the same phenomenon around Google, and its sometimes clever recruiting campaigns. This design pattern is not inherently ridiculous, but can become so, especially if it's a circus recruiting for clowns. In the Middle Ages, and Renaissance, we had these guilds, offering apprenticeships, and doing obvious work in the community (blacksmiths, artisans, moneychangers and what have you). Today, kids carry laptops like musical instruments and want to learn to play them. Is school teaching this kind of music? A little, some more than others. And home internet is great. To me it's not surprising when young talents start dreaming of what they could learn if allowed to wander the halls of a computer giant -- like little Bachs yearning to hear real organ music. I realize this makes corporations sound sort of like religions in their outreaching for new lifers. And it's true. Some companies are really cultures, sometimes global in scope. They enter the public school system and form push/pull relationships with other clients of that system, setting up interesting cross-currents. That's partly why I think public school stands up well over time, perhaps best of all in urban settings. Too many of the private academies over-protect their bumpkins, in the name of some purist ideology, usually as professed by key faculty -- and so they miss a lot of what goes on in the big outside world. Life goes on without 'em. Public schools tend to be more like Grand Central, especially in a state with a big city like yours, the Empire State (not called that for nuthin'). Cosmopolis, Gotham, whatever. Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
-Original Message- From: Kirby Urner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 7:01 PM To: 'Arthur'; 'David Handy'; 'Laura Creighton' Cc: edu-sig@python.org Subject: RE: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL And I guess that if Microsoft wants to undertake a campaign to suggest that their business agenda and the realization of my son's potential are cosmically related, I should, since I don't particularly admire the organization welcome their right to spend good money to make themselves LOOK RIDICULOUS. Art Microsoft already has a track record. FWIW, I am more referencing - and what more sets me off - is their recent advertising campaigns. Especially the one I see constantly with kids in it. Which are substanceless and insulting (I get insulted easily) mind games - kids doing stuff, musical notes floating in mid-air and some voice over about Microsoft's mission to realize our potential. If you have something to say, say it. What's on sale this week at ShopRite. *That's* advertising Stop playing with minds. DAMN IT! Art ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
-Original Message- From: Kirby Urner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 6:26 PM To: 'Arthur'; 'Laura Creighton' NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF STATE SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS COALITIONS News Brief #3285 Category: Business Role in Education TITLE: Companies Unveil Projects to Improve Math, Science Learning Two major corporations are investing millions of dollars in programs intended to improve math and science learning. The General Electric Foundation will distribute $100 million in grants over the next five years to raise math and science scores in up to five school districts. Maybe the GE Foundation is a legitimate foundation doing legitimate foundation work. Great the ways those things happen. Henry Ford was a dangerous anti-Semite. He assured his right to free speech by buying a newspaper just for that purpose. God bless him. The Ford Foundation does consistently interesting things. But is the GE Foundation contributing to gender unfairness by directing its largess toward math and science curriculum ;) Perhaps the fact that we will apparently have what I think is our 1st mathematician on the Supreme Court (undergraduate degree of Miers) who is also our second women on the Supreme Court will play some small part in muting that nonsense. Back to David's point. There is no denying that there is politics alive in the public schools hurting education. As a damn good for example would be the notion that math and science, according to some vocal segment, needing to be de-emphasized in the interest of gender fairness. I have heard that in PythonLand as well. Arghhh. Certainly I would not be in a position to be the kind of administrator willing to work with and within *everybody's* sensitivities. Again, personal frame of reference: I have a sister who can out think me as a mathematician while whistling Dixie. Art The Jefferson County, Kentucky school district is the first to receive a $25-million grant. The district plans to use the money for a new districtwide curriculum, additional professional development, and community engagement efforts. The IBM International Foundation will pay college tuition costs for up to 100 employees who want to train as math and science teachers. In order to participate in the Transition to Teaching program, employees will have to have a bachelor's degree in math or science (or a higher degree in a related field), some teaching experience, and at least 10 years of employment at IBM. The U.S. Department of Labor has predicted a 51-percent increase in jobs related to science, engineering and technology between 1998 and 2008. More than a quarter-million secondary math and science teachers will be needed by the 2008-09 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education. SOURCE: Education Week, 28 September 2005 (p. 06) WEBSITE: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/09/28/05ibm.h25.html The NASSMC Briefing Service (NBS) is supported in part by the International Technology Education Association and Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education. Briefs reflect only the opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the source articles. Click http://nbs.nassmc.org to SUBSCRIBE, COMMENT, or FIND archived NBS briefs. Click http://www.nassmc.org for information about NASSMC. Permission is granted to re-distribute NBS briefs in unmodified form, including header and footer. ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
