This week represents National Teacher Appreciation Week and if there was ever an appropriate time to applaud the efforts of our nation’s teachers, it is now.  Considering the well-publicized and overwhelming reality of our nation’s fiscal concerns, there can be little doubt that the nation’s leadership faces an arduous task.  The nation’s teachers, however, have arguably an even greater and more daunting task: preparing our youngest minds for the uncertain future that lies ahead of them. 

A 2006 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau states that there are 6.8 million teachers in the United States, approximately one-third of them teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels (the other two-thirds teach at preschool, kindergarten or college levels).  According to the Census Bureau report, teachers in Connecticut enjoyed the largest salaries in the nation, an average of $57,300, while teachers in South Dakota earned only $33,200 per year, the lowest in the nation.  The national average teacher salary in 2006 was $46,800.  Considering the importance of the job the nation’s teachers perform, such striking salary discrepancies are disappointing.  The recent budget crises in most states don’t offer much hope that teacher salaries will improve in the near future.

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The other day, my wife and I were at a friend’s house and he showed us an electronic device called FlashMaster.  His daughter was having trouble with her math facts and her fifth grade teacher recommended that her parents purchase one of these devices.  I liked it as well and purchased one for my daughters.

Chuck Resor of Jackson Hole, Wyoming invented FlashMaster after becoming frustrated with other educational technologies.   The short biography provided on the FlashMaster website states that Chuck’s most relevant qualification for inventing the product is that he is a parent himself who also struggled with how to most effectively supplement the math training his own children received.  He hired an engineering firm to craft his concept and a Chinese manufacturing firm to build it.  The gadget is a little bigger than a Nintendo DS and probably not as much fun.  However, for those of you who think that today’s elementary school programs do not teach the basic fundamentals of math (math facts) and whose children do not respond well to flash cards, this is the tool for you.

FlashMaster comes with an instruction booklet; but it is written for teachers and parents.  On the front page, the guide recommends that the device be handed to children to learn as much as they can about how it works without reading the directions.  There are nine levels each of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  You can set the level of difficulty for each as well as the time that you want to answer all thirty questions at each level.  The problem is displayed on a screen and you type in the keys corresponding to the numeric answer.  If you get an answer wrong, a little beep is registered and the question is automatically stored for a review at the end.  You can also change the format of your question from straightforward (1+2 = ?) to (? + 2 = 3) or (1 + ? = 3).  At the highest level and the shortest time, you really have to know your math facts to answer thirty multiplication and division questions correctly.  There’s even a memory function that allows the student or the student’s teacher or parents to review which questions the student missed while using Flashmaster. 

Our girls enjoy using the device and challenge each other with how many questions they could answer correctly in a sixty second, 150 second, or 180 second time period.   I am confident that they will improve their math facts while playing with the Flashmaster.  I am not related to Chuck, do not know Chuck, and do not have a financial relationship with Chuck.  Chuck, many thanks for inventing this device.  I wish that I had.  I think it is one of the best tools for improving basic math skills and I think we need millions of them in America, particularly in elementary classrooms.

Clayton Christensen, the author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, and Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson team up on this recently published book.  In Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, Christensen and his co-authors apply sound theory, research, and practicality to a subject that no one wants to tackle: reforming K-12 education in America.

Some of the prescient points that the authors make in the book are:  increasing spending on the wrong items (like more computers) won’t necessarily help improve K-12, blaming the problems solely on the teachers’ unions won’t improve K-12, and unless students and teachers are motivated, problems won’t necessarily get solved.

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Our programs and courses have been online since 1996.  There are several organizations that track the progress of online post-secondary enrollments including Eduventures and the Sloan Consortium.  There’s no doubt that the convenience of online post-secondary programs is a major reason that more and more adults are continuing or furthering their college education through online degree programs.

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Much has been written about the looming teacher shortage as the current generation of Baby Boomer Teachers nears retirement.  Teacher salaries versus the escalating cost of a college degree are an often-cited reason why many of today’s students do not choose a career in teaching.  USA Today estimated in February 2006 that the average college graduate would carry at least $19,000 in student debt upon graduation.  Exacerbating the trend is the statistic that 50 percent of all new teachers in urban areas leave the profession in the first three years.

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