--
Philip Regan
pregan at gmail dot com
http://homepage.mac.com/pregan
RB 5.5.5/2005, Mac OS 10.3.9, Mac-centric development
>
> > [Note to Americans who are afraid of outsourcing and jobs moving
> > offshore: most of the Asian and Indian/Pakistani CS candidates have
> > been much better. Not cheaper. Better. But then, they already knew
> > calculus coming out of high school. The rest of the world really gets
> > math and physics...why's it so hard for us?]
Better depending on the industry certainly. Math is one thing, but
tagging for XML, copy-editing, illustration, production management,
etc. is something else entirely. E-mail off-list and I tell you my
"Pigtail" story, and you'll understand why I *dread* using overseas
comps. But, this is tough a tough argument to make when the upper
muckity-mucks see a much lower plate cost for a book.
>
> Have you seen the crap that many high schools are using for textbooks
> in the US? When my daughters were in HS, it seemed more important to
> have story problems about the politically correct issue of the day than
> to actually teach theory and promote a true understanding..... I have
> two brothers teaching in HS, and one sister teaching in a community
> college so I have seen both sides.
Absolutely correct. Companies have to make edits to suit individual
states requirements for curriculum, sometimes at the cost of the
quality of teaching material. Think Texas and the hot button issue of
teaching evolution in the schools. Now we're getting into "intelligent
design". Or Massachusetts and the evil MCAS tests. El-Hi publsihers
can have as many as 20 or so iterations of a single text to meet
individual states' needs, and those needs often have nothing to do
with just simply teaching a subject, but instead on *how* to teach the
subject including not teaching certain aspects of it. It's both
frustrating and expensive.
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