It won't be long until America doesn't have anything else to outsource. Particularly troublesome is the new millennium trend of outsourcing education.

Earlier this year, I wrote a column on outsourcing newspaper jobs. I talked about what it actually means to American journalism, and the fact it was one more professional vocation being assaulted by bean-counters who turn to cheap foreign alternatives to make a profit.

Outsourcing our education is an indication that there's either something wrong with how we teach our future educators, or how low education is on our politician's list of funding priorities. Probably a combination of both.

According to a recent article in USA Today, school administrators throughout the U.S. are picking from a pool of skilled international teachers. My first thought was they were probably mostly from India. That's where the majority of American newspapers are going to get pages laid out, articles edited, and so forth. I was wrong, although we do get some from there.

In an Aug.12th Associated Press (AP) article about education being outsourced, it was noted that the majority of teachers are now coming from the Philippine education system. The reason is money. A teacher in the Philippines makes about $300 a month. They can make 10 times more than that in Alabama or Maryland. All they need is a bachelor's degree and no experience.

This approach by Corporate America to conduct a global talent search to take away

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U.S. jobs comes under the guise of meeting our educational shortages. Instead of addressing the root of our problems, which is to bring our schools up to speed in quality education through whatever means necessary, more officials are turning to this "band aid" solution as a way to cover up the decay in the system.

Philippine Education Secretary, Jesli Lapus, told AP that teachers hired for U.S. classrooms are those most proficient in English, and who look at America as a "... second home," and not a strange place.

Lapus also said that the Philippine education system, which has 500,000 public school teachers and some 30,000 new ones each year, can afford to export their expertise. He also pointed out that "We cannot even absorb all those that pass."

The U.S. Department of Education doesn't even monitor how many foreigners are working in American classrooms, according to spokeswoman Elissa Leonard. A federal survey released last May confirmed that there is a dearth of math and science teachers due to retirement of baby boomers (100,000 in California alone).

As far back as five years ago, The National Education Association (NEA) estimated that up to 10,000 foreigners were already teaching U.S. students in primary and secondary schools, mainly to fill vacancies in math, science, foreign languages and special education.

According to the NEA, the largest single sponsor of foreign teachers is Chapel Hill, N.C.-based, Visiting International Faculty, which it claims has 1,500 teachers from more than 55 countries in districts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, and California.

There's been some difficulties in this recruitment of foreign teachers according to David Haselkorn, policy research director at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton, N.J., which recruits recent college graduates. He warned, "that if they are recruited into schools and communities lacking the kinds of support that all new teachers need, they may not stay."

All of this adds up to a crisis in my opinion. What I'm seeing is the American education system is rapidly becoming dysfunctional. Arthur Levine, the former president of Columbia University's Teachers College, concluded in a 2006 study that 54 percent of the nation's teachers are taught at colleges with low admission requirements.

The study pointed out that the nation's annual teacher attrition rate is 8 percent. There are some alternative teaching programs such as Teach For America -- which supplies aspiring teachers to school districts in 27 cities, but for the most part we're not meeting the growing shortage.

The only real answer to keeping American teachers is to pay them what their really worth. We entrust our children to them, and yet we expect them to work without fair wages and benefits. Our children are our future. The thing this country needs is a revival of our once-proud school standards and quality. I want to hear what the presidential candidates will do to really improve our national education system, and not their childish name-calling campaigns.

We're running out of time. Right now experts say the shortages are in math and science, but it'll soon be in every subject there is. Until, we the people, force our politicians to address this lack of teachers, and to focus on upgrading our entire national educational system from the ground up, our future is bleak. Talk about the dumbing-down of America will become more than just an expression. It'll be our reality one day!

As It Stands, what will American's do to make a living when we've outsourced every job, in every sector there is?

Dave Stancliff is a columnist for The Times-Standard. He is a former newspaper editor and publisher. Comments can be sent to richstan1@suddenlink.net or davesblogcentral.com