Yeah, I agree, in English or writing classes, this becomes much less beneficial. I certainly agree that this wouldn’t work for everyone, but it should definitely be open in the areas that it can work.

Also, if I was taking an English or writing class, you’d better bet I want someone fluent in English to be reading and grading that paper since grading shouldn’t just be about putting a letter on the paper, but also offering important feedback and even correcting grammatical mistakes.

I fixed the spam filter. Damn spam filter!! You are from now and forever ‘whitelisted’(must be a Republican spam filter, blocks Hispanics and Liberals, and only accepts ‘white’, LOL j/k) on this site, meaning that you can post as often as you like, as much as you like, and you should never be blocked again. Let me know if you have any other problems.

Nebur, Cindylu, Gustavo,

This post is very serious and very much supported by me. I hope I have answered the objections above, but if I have not done it properly (damn ESL classes), please respond with the areas of interest.

As far as outsourcing teaching goes, I agree with you, it would not work in all circumstances. It would only work in circumstances where a high paid teachers time is being spent on something much less valuable than what that teacher could be doing, be it teaching or research.

To use an extreme example, let’s say that Harvard University assigned its professors to also clean up their classrooms after class. Yes, you heard me right, as a requirement, professors at Harvard had to spend some of their time going around the very big classrooms they have picking up trash and fixing desks. In that circumstance, I’m sure you’d agree that outsourcing that particular duty, say to janitors and cleaning personal that could do the work much cheaper than what you pay a Harvard Professor, is a net gain in the efficiency of Harvard, right? Well, the same can be done with mundane tasks of grading and so forth. Of course a janitor and cleaning personal can’t do that work, but an Indian with a Masters degree from India Institute of Technology certainly can. And just like in the Janitor example I gave above, it would be a clear efficiency gain for the Universities that do it.

Hey, wouldn’t hiring all kinds of tutors and graders, thus attracting better teachers mean more funding for education? I thought you were against that.

You are correct, I am strongly against more funding for education, but I don’t think this would require more funding for education. On the contrary, if it is done right, it may require less funding for education. Remember, outsourcing is only a viable option when it increases the efficiency of a University. So if outsourcing were to take place (following the arguments in the article), you would get better qualified teachers without having to pay them more. In other words, no need for extra money, and if you did it right, you might even be able to do it cheaper than is currently done. For example, say the teachers that used to spend a considerable amount of their time grading, because of outsourcing they can now spend that time teaching more classes. So essentially, you have more teachers(to be more specific, more classes being taught) at the same price. If more teachers are not needed, than you have money left over for other things. Hence, less funding.

As far as your PS goes, I tend to agree there. I’ve had some pretty bad (and some really really good) foreign students teach some of my classes. It almost seems like Universities now a days don’t have any English requirements when choosing which graduate student to teach a class. But as far as outsourcing goes, you don’t need a student to speak very good english to grade papers, so outsourcing would help this problem too.

Hey, wouldn’t hiring all kinds of tutors and graders, thus attracting better teachers mean more funding for education? I thought you were against that.

P.S. The Chronicle of Higher Education had something about a “backlash” of sorts against Asian and South Asian professors and teaching assistants in math, engineering and the sciences.