U.S. needs foreign teachers

By Jonathan Zimmerman

'Shut up, Jackie Chan!" That's what students shouted at Danilo Danga when he first arrived in Baltimore, where he teaches at a public middle school. But Danga isn't from China, as his students' ignorant taunt implied. He's from the Philippines.

So are 600 other Baltimore teachers, who now constitute 10 percent of the city's instructional force. Other districts are hiring teachers from India and China, especially for inner-city schools or hard-to-fill assignments in science and math. Roughly 19,000 foreign nationals currently teach in American public schools, according to a report released last month by the American Federation of Teachers.

Is that a problem? The AFT thinks it is. By employing foreigners, the report says, school districts can plug holes in their faculties without considering "domestic solutions" (read: American hires). Foreign teachers are also subject to abuse by unscrupulous recruiters, who saddle them with enormous fees. Finally, the AFT warns, the teachers often face "culture shock" in American classrooms.

But the report is silent about the cultural advantages these teachers can provide. In today's increasingly globalized world, our children need more exposure to different peoples and cultures, not less. Instead of eschewing foreign teachers, we should be welcoming them with open arms.

Americans' anxiety about foreign teachers speaks to a deep parochialism. If the new teachers in Baltimore were Filipino Americans - that is, U.S. citizens with roots in the Philippines - we would congratulate the city for making its faculty more "diverse." When the teachers actually come from the Philippines, though, we start to wring our hands.

The same thing happened in the 1960s, when President Lyndon B. Johnson called for a "reverse Peace Corps" of 5,000 foreign volunteers to assist in his War on Poverty. Just as Americans helped the needy overseas, Johnson argued, foreign "Volunteers to America" could aid the United States, especially in its schools.

"We would be shortsighted to confine our vision to the nation's shorelines," Johnson said in a 1966 message to Congress. "We need [foreigners'] special skills and understanding, just as they need ours."

Congress balked, though, refusing to authorize Johnson's expansive program. But a small pilot project brought 67 teachers from 14 countries into America's schools, where they taught about their homelands. In Washington, for example, a Venezuelan volunteer taught Spanish and Latin American geography, while a drummer from Ghana gave courses in African music and history.

In fact, the idea of a reverse Peace Corps seems to have originated with Ghanaian independence leader Kwame Nkrumah. In 1961, Nkrumah welcomed the first-ever Peace Corps contingent of 51 teachers to Ghana. But Nkrumah had lived for a decade in the United States, where he obtained a master's degree in education, so he also understood the deficiencies and challenges of American schools.

As Nkrumah discovered, Americans were woefully ignorant about the rest of the world. What better way to educate them about it than to hire teachers from overseas?

Meeting with Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver in 1963, Nkrumah requested more American teachers for Ghana. But he also pledged to send Ghanaian teachers to the United States if it would accept them. It never did, except in small numbers.

Today, of course, the number of foreign instructors is much larger. That's because America needs teachers, especially in science and math, and especially in our inner cities. According to the AFT, 200,000 new teachers have to be hired each year. And 70,000 of them will be in high-poverty, urban districts.

Can we solve this problem simply by hiring foreigners? Of course not. That's why President Obama has established federal scholarships for Americans who agree to teach in high-need areas after they graduate. He has also offered extra pay for those who teach science and math.

That's all for the good. At the same time, however, we should also lend a hand to districts that want to hire qualified foreign teachers. As more and more countries outpace the United States in science and math, these teachers might help us catch up. Best of all, though, they can also teach our kids something new and important about the larger world.

And that brings us back to Danilo Danga, the Filipino teacher in Baltimore. Confronted by hostile students, he decided to offer them rewards for good behavior. One of the prizes was the Filipino dish chicken adobo, which Danga cooked himself.

It worked. The students behaved better, which left more time for classroom instruction. And they learned a little bit about Danga's own country and culture. I doubt anyone calls him "Jackie Chan" anymore.