Glenn Faults Secondary Schools

Former Senator and astronaut John H. Glenn told a packed ARCO forum last night that the American secondary school system does not treat or train its teachers well enough, and students are suffering,

Glenn was chosen last year as the head of the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, which released its findings in late September.

Glenn cited findings of the commission showing that through fourth grade, American school systems rank among the top 2 to 3 nations in math and science of 41 nations studied, but by graduation, America ranks among the bottom 2-3 nations.

"People say, 'What's good enough for the past is good enough for the future.' Not necessarily," Glenn said.

Changes in America's educational system are necessary, Glenn said, and as the only country in the world without a nationalized system, those changes are in the hands of the country's 15,300 independently elected school systems.

Glenn said that a three-fold plan is necessary to correct the country's performance in math and science.

He acknowledged the need to improve America's teaching force and better prepare new teachers. Recruitment programs, he said, need to be initiated to counter the chronic teacher shortage in the K-12 system. Finally, he said teacher salaries need to be increased so that the teaching profession is more attractive.

Because American teachers are teaching outside their primary fields, Glenn said, our educational system has suffered.

25 percent of math teachers and 20 percent of science teachers are teaching outside their fields, Glenn said, and 30 percent of math and science teachers leave their positions within three years after starting because of low pay.

As part of its study, the commission examined teaching methods in other countries.

Glenn cited Japanese teaching methods as beneficial because they promote critical thinking rather than teaching skills.

Japanese teachers, Glenn said, promote a more interactive style of learning in which students collaborate to solve problems before being presented with a potential method for finding a solution.

Glenn sent out the findings of the commission to every school board in the United States, in the hope of facilitating the implementation of corrective measures at all levels.

"Local school boards hold the key to correcting this," Glenn said. "People say, 'Can we afford to do this?' My idea is, can we afford not to?" Glenn said.

Glenn has had a distinguished career in the military, in space and in politics. After piloting a spacecraft for the first manned orbital mission of the United States, Glenn pursued his interest in politics.

He represented his home state of Ohio in the Senate for more than two decades, and became the oldest man to go into space in 1998 when he participated in a study on aging and space travel.