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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1983)
Page 4B/The BattalioiVrhursday, April 21, 1983 Science, math teacher shortage grows critical United Press International SAN FRANCISCO — Drawn by the good pay of the burgeoning high technology industry, science and mathe matics teachers are leaving the classroom in increasing num bers, and it’s hurting the na tion’s school systems, an edu cation expert says. “There are 43 states using less than fully qualified teachers to instruct math and science,” said James Guthrie, former chairman of the Uni versity of California at Ber keley School of Education. During the 1981 school year, the entire nine-campus University of California sys tem had only 22 students en rolled in mathematics teaching programs and 47 in science teaching, according to a report from the Institute of Governmental Studies. There are nearly 20,000 science and math teachers in California’s public secondary schools, but an estimated 2,200 leave, retire or are laid off each year, Guthrie said. “For the average parent it won’t seem like a crisis,” he said. “Their kids will be in a classroom and a warm body will be up in front. But the class sizes will get larger. The lack of qualifications of the person at the front of the room is increasing to a crisis proportion. “For the long term we’re in trouble. When a school super intendent contacts a place ment office to send a math or science teacher, they aren’t there. Superintendents take staff teachers who are legally qualified but in fact never had sufficient background to teach math and science,” said Guthrie. The largest demand comes from the new computer tech nology industries, from which California is expected to gleen 40 percent of its new jobs in the 1980s. The lack of newly-trained teachers entering the field is compounded by the number of teachers leaving to take higher-paying jobs in high- tech industry. “High tech is by no means the whole problem but it is a significant part,” said Guthrie. A national survey of 1976- 77 college graduates showed only 5,000 students — out of 1 million college graduates — qualified as math teachers, Guthrie said. Unless solutions are found soon, the United States will be “overshadowed and domin ated by the dynamic high- technology research and in dustrial capabilities of foreign powers,” he said. Salaries are a big reason teachers leave. The average starting pay for a San Francisco Bay Area teacher is $12,680. By con trast, a graduate in physics or mathematics who takes a fifth year of training, as teachers do, could start at $20,000 a year at the Hewlett-Packard computer component com pany, the Institute report said. California once recruited heavily for teachers in the Midwest and South but that labor pool is dwindling. “Georgia was 5,000 teachers short last year,” said Guthrie. The use of a reserve labor force of housewives called into use during the baby boom era of the 1950s no longer ex ists, he said. “The fastest fix” for the cri sis, he said, will come from in dustry sending trained per sonnel to teach in schools dur ing part of the work day. Already he has received positive response from indus try. “This has been the largest industry move toward a more responsible position than I have seen in decades.” Second, he said, is the re training of so-called surplus teachers of English or history to teach math and science. And third is governmental tuition loans to students that can be excused for graduates who teach math and science. “But in the long run, some thing has to be done about salaries,” said Guthrie. ..piioi SM imi - MrcTiMCTt <HTO AIM \KTmr FALL of the HOUSE of USHER starring VINCENT PRICE presented by /MSC CEPHEID VARIABLE -ft- THURS. APRIL 21 in RUDDER 701 7:30 p.m. show canceled due to Muster 9:45 p.m. Admission - *1°° tanss MSC • TOWN • HALL W" Take a Study Break with. in concert with guest INXS ... G. Rollie White Coliseum Tickets: $ 5 50 , $ 6 50 , $ 7 00 MSC Box Office 845-1234 Teenagers help their peers Program aids abused kids United Press International SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Not long ago, Brenda wasn’t sure she had a friend in the world. Now she is a friend — a good friend — to other kids like her who have been targets of physical or sexual abuse. Brenda, 17, helps abused and battered children deal with their pain and guilt, express their fears and unleash their anguish. She helps them make the transi tion she says she already has made, from victim to survivor. The federal government esti mates there are 1 million cases of child abuse nationwide each year — 2,000 of them fatal. Brenda and two friends, Sue and Ann, brought those cold sta tistics to life in South Bend at a recent national conference on child abuse. Only their first names were used to protect their privacy. “When we’re there with them, we almost regress to their level,” Brenda said, recalling her own trauma at the hands of her step-brothers. “You look back, and you feel back. You relate to what those kids are going through and you can help them.” Sue said: “We feel it’s impor tant not to have just any teena ger working with abused kids, but teenagers that have been abused themselves.” Sue, sexually molested four years ago by an adult in her church-sponsored drug therapy group, recently finished leading nine young girls through several months of ’ weekly therapy ses sions. Brenda and Ann, a 16-year- old molested by her brother when she was 9 until she was 14, work together as teenage “co facilitators” of once-a-week ses sions with nine bruised and bat tered 5- to 8-year-olds at the Parental Stress Clinic-Parents Anonymous in Madison, Wis. Working with professional counselors, the teenagers say they do whatever they can to win the trust of kids who are afraid to be touched, afraid to be loved. A typical session includes ex ercises, a snack, activities to help kids act out through painting or acting the horrors of a home life they cannot verbalize. The ses sions also include discipline that — for once in the youngsters’ lives — is firm, but loving. The teenagers say reliving their past through the children who are living it now is both aw ful and therapeutic. “I wouldn’t remember being sexually abused when I was eight until I was with these kids,” Brenda said. “Then, all of a sud den I was having flashbacks and dreams. “When you look at kids going through the same thing you went through, you can’t run away from it anymore. You have to deal with it.” Brenda’s toughest assign ment was a young boy — sexual ly abused by three different men — who hao withdrawn so far he couldn’t stand to be touched by anyone. He refused to take part in group sessions. One night, Brenda said, “he smacked me real hard,” touching off a 10-minute wei ling match to get him underml trol. The struggle uneartheddj horrors for her. “It was real hard for mea-J I was on top of Scott,” shesj “because I’ve been underwl people. Was I victimizinglii Was 1 raping this kid in| head? Was I underneath';! mind went nuts. I wasrightW there.” Brenda finally got the J under control. That was| turning point in their rebiiJ ship. “Finally, hejustsattherea looked at me, and I gotoffS and he laid his head on mjlJ she said. “The only wayhea me is that I have physicalpo over him without hurtingld He knows he can relate! touch me without gettingluJ Ann is looking for a chaml make the same kindofhrj through with Rachel,alittlea so scared of her real liftl sometimes creates a fan!*| replace it. Texas economy could suffer unless clean air deadlines met United Press International HOUSTON — More than two million Texans would feel the economic impact of government sanctions, unleashed because clean air deadlines were not met, officials told the Texas Air Con trol Board. “Whether they know it or not, 2.5 million people are looking down an economic gun barrel aimed at their vitals,” Harris County Judge Jon Lindsay told TACB hearing examiners Tuesday. “The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) sanctions would have dire consequences (and) would be counterproduc tive to the goal we all desire and strive for, which of course, is clean air,” Lindsay said. The EPA on Feb. 3 said it in tends to curtail industrial con struction and embargo millions of dollars for federal highway funds, pollution control grants, sewage treatment money for Harris County and other metro politan areas of Texas which failed to meet EPA pollution standards. Lindsay labeled the proposed EPA sanctions “capricious" and “arbitrary.” He urged the TACB to renew efforts to persuade the EPA of the validity of Harris County’s plan to control its pollution problems and comply with the Federal Clean Air Act by 1987. “The proposed sanctions would cause significant de terioration of both air quality and water quality, thus defeat ing the purposes of the Clean AREH0USE QconvERSi -w- i new balance ALE Save from 40% to 50% Selected Brand Name Shoes! Serving Luncheon Buffet Sunday through Friday ’ 1:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Delicious Food Beautiful View All Sweats V2 Price Nobody knows the athlete’s foot like - Athlete’s Fool. •Re open to the Public i® ^ “Quality First” ^ * * * * * * * * * Friday April 15-Saturday April 23 * Post Oak Mall £ Near Dillard’s 764-1000 Hours 10 to 9 rt| ¥■¥•-¥■-¥■-¥^•¥■-¥^-¥--¥■-¥^-¥■-¥•-*-¥--¥‘-¥■¥*■*¥¥**¥¥¥11 T4E4 301 PATRICIA PIZZA & SUBS 846-3768 846-7751 CHANELLO’S WE ACCEPT COMPETITOR’S COUPONS!!! 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