Private school teachers, please answer this question honestly.

[Anonymous]

You were actually qualified to teach in public? I didn't think private teachers had the same qualifications as public

I find this whole discussion fascinating. I have taught in both public and private school in DC, CA and NYC. Teachers choose to work at a school for a whole host of reasons. It's a personal choice. Why all the vitriol for either position? There are great teachers in both private and public schools. There are incompetent teachers in both. Having certification or an MA does not necessarily make you a great teacher AND private schools have many certified/educated teachers. Why do these discussions always have to get so loaded with personal barbs, outright insults and redicule for one thing or another? Makes DCUM a freak show most of the time.
I am certified, educated (MA) and have chosen to work in different environments for different reasons. Pay in privates does not have to be awful - although in some it is - but often the low pay provides other benefits that can make it worth it. Public school can be a fabulous place to work, but it also can come with limitations that a teacher may not want to deal with. You all seem to be want to make it an either/or, good/bad thing. Get real. Life is much more complex and nuanced than that.

[Anonymous]

"You were actually qualified to teach in public? I didn't think private teachers had the same qualifications as public."

I'm not the PP you're addressing, but to clarify, to teach in public school, you have to be certified. you don't have to be certified to teach in private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"You were actually qualified to teach in public? I didn't think private teachers had the same qualifications as public."

I'm not the PP you're addressing, but to clarify, to teach in public school, you have to be certified. you don't have to be certified to teach in private school.

That depend on the private school, it is not that easy to generalize.

[Anonymous]

That depend on the private school, it is not that easy to generalize.

No. You are wrong. In every state, you must be certified to teach in a public school. You do not have to be certified to teach in a private school.

Of course, your private can use certification as its own independent verification of quality, but that's up to the individual school. Many privates, especially now with so many qualified teachers out of work, will use criteria such as certification and/or a master's degree, to vouch for the quality of their faculty. In my opinion, this is great and raises the quality of applicants in privates. Still, it is important for parents to understand that private schools pay less, in part, because they have fewer requirements for their teachers. Originally, and smartly, this stance was predicated on the idea that there was a potential positive in having a non traditional individual in the classroom, one who was a subject matter expert first, who could bring real world experience and more innovative instructional strategies than the traditional Ed school graduate might bring. Sadly, this position has not been terribly successful, (although it would be unfair to call it a failure) because there is tension between attracting subject matter experts to a lower paying system.

I often think that certification and a master's should be the minimum for both public and privates, with financial incentives and tuition relief (for career changer certification programs) for subject matter experts that want to transition to the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Public school teachers may have to be on a path toward certification, but they don't necessarily have to be certified. Various alternative paths to certification have been developed to accommodate recent college grads who didn't take ed courses or people transitioning from other professions mid-career. Also, in many places, public schools now include charter schools and some jurisdictions don't require the same certification in charters as in conventional public schools. So you can find lots of public schools with uncertified teachers on the faculty.

On the other side of the coin, some privates won't hire teachers unless they have certification and to a parent who has chosen one of those schools, what other private schools do is largely irrelevant.

In the end all the lines are blurry at this point, so it's a school- or system-specific question.

[Anonymous]

I think people who send their children to private schools realize that they are often getting teachers that are better prepared in their subject areas. I know there are many excellent teachers in public schools. I also know there are many who lack as good a background in their subject area because so much emphasis was sent on education courses. Everyone pretty well knows that a Masters of Education is not as difficult as say an MA in English or History.

Kenhr

[Anonymous]

There may be different routes, but you need certification - whether that means that a certified teacher take the Praxis in another area or a student completes a Master's in education (having earned an undergrad in some other field).

Sadly, a Master's is the norm, which means that people entering with an undergraduate field will be overlooked. Furthermore, what you appear to not understand is the importance of strategies. Having a degree in chemistry means shit unless you know HOW to teach the content to students.

So while some private school educator is walking around with PhD credentials, if educational repertoire is lacking (as in no techniques or devices to help with student mastery), what good is s/he?

And no - you cannot find "lots of public schools with non-certified teachers on the faculty." That's BS.

You're not in the field, correct?

Anonymous wrote:Public school teachers may have to be on a path toward certification, but they don't necessarily have to be certified. Various alternative paths to certification have been developed to accommodate recent college grads who didn't take ed courses or people transitioning from other professions mid-career. Also, in many places, public schools now include charter schools and some jurisdictions don't require the same certification in charters as in conventional public schools. So you can find lots of public schools with uncertified teachers on the faculty.

On the other side of the coin, some privates won't hire teachers unless they have certification and to a parent who has chosen one of those schools, what other private schools do is largely irrelevant.

In the end all the lines are blurry at this point, so it's a school- or system-specific question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people who send their children to private schools realize that they are often getting teachers that are better prepared in their subject areas. I know there are many excellent teachers in public schools. I also know there are many who lack as good a background in their subject area because so much emphasis was sent on education courses. Everyone pretty well knows that a Masters of Education is not as difficult as say an MA in English or History.

Kenhr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxPVyieptwA

Again, knowing your subject matter inside and out doesn't necessarily make someone a good teacher.

[Anonymous]

Nor does having a certificate necessarily make someone a good teacher.

[Anonymous]

Nor does having a certificate necessarily make someone a good teacher.

True. But state certification requirements insure that the recipient has taken the academic courses (in both subject matter and pedagogy) most often associated with good teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Nor does having a certificate necessarily make someone a good teacher.

True. But state certification requirements insure that the recipient has taken the academic courses (in both subject matter and pedagogy) most often associated with good teaching.

No, they don't. It depends on the state and the kind of certification (it can just mean that you got a public school job and are enrolled in a program). And that's before we get to the quality of the programs/coursework. TFA, for example, puts people into the classroom after 5 weeks of teacher-training. States may require Praxis exam(s) of their TFA hires, but each state sets its own standard of what constitutes a passing grade on those exams. And requiring an additional subject matter exam is meaningless if teachers aren't placed in their area of specialization.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
There may be different routes, but you need certification - whether that means that a certified teacher take the Praxis in another area or a student completes a Master's in education (having earned an undergrad in some other field).

Sadly, a Master's is the norm, which means that people entering with an undergraduate field will be overlooked. Furthermore, what you appear to not understand is the importance of strategies. Having a degree in chemistry means shit unless you know HOW to teach the content to students.

So while some private school educator is walking around with PhD credentials, if educational repertoire is lacking (as in no techniques or devices to help with student mastery), what good is s/he?

And no - you cannot find "lots of public schools with non-certified teachers on the faculty." That's BS.

You're not in the field, correct?

Yes, I am in the field. And, no, what I'm saying is not BS -- as I explained, charter schools are public schools and, in many states, they are exempt from certification requirement -- just like private schools. And anyone who does a quick google search of "uncertified teachers" will see that they exist and are employed in public school systems. Yes, NCLB has mandated that public school teachers be "highly qualified," but largely left the definition of "highly qualified" to each state. And, in response (to this and other pressures), states have created a variety of pretty meaningless roads to certification. In public schools where there's lots of churn (note that that "where" is a qualifier not a characterization of public schools generally), kids can be taught by a series of TFA recruits who are, in theory, on the road to a full teaching credential but who are teaching long before they reach that destination and who probably will never get there anyway.

Credentialing once meant something. Increasingly, it doesn't. And since, as I think you later acknowledge, since credentialing is not a guarantee (just an indicator coursework that would increase the odds) of good teaching, then if a private school chooses to rely on other indicators (e.g. years of successful teaching experience), it doesn't follow that it's hiring less qualified teachers. And, of course, private schools can certainly choose to require certification of their teachers. Even when they don't, the good ones aren't hiring random PhD's -- they're looking for people who are good teachers and who, specifically, are able to teach not just their subject but kids. To put this a different way, they're looking beyond credentials to teaching ability. Which, of course, is what good public school principals do as well, to the extent that they can. A teaching credential is a relatively low bar -- not a mark of excellence.

Bottom line: the quality (and preparation) of teachers is really an empirical and school-specific question. It doesn't make sense to rely on facile generalizations about public vs. private teachers. There are great teachers (and not-so-great teachers) in both kinds of schools.

[Anonymous]

And teachers who move freely between types of schools. Not everyone is an ideologue on this subject -- people take the best job they can find and depending on their location, their goals, and their immediate needs at any given moment. The best job here and now might be public, might be private, might be charter. Years earlier or later, the same teacher may have a different set of opportunities and/or a different sense of what s/he wants from a job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people who send their children to private schools realize that they are often getting teachers that are better prepared in their subject areas. I know there are many excellent teachers in public schools. I also know there are many who lack as good a background in their subject area because so much emphasis was sent on education courses. Everyone pretty well knows that a Masters of Education is not as difficult as say an MA in English or History.

Kenhr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxPVyieptwA

Again, knowing your subject matter inside and out doesn't necessarily make someone a good teacher.

Maybe not, but it would be pretty foolish to keep successful teachers that hold Masters and PhD degrees from our public classrooms for lack of a teaching certificate. However, we do it all the time in this country. There was a reason we were all so captivated and inspired (with exceptions of course) as college students by the instruction that we received. I believe it was because we were not accustomed to that level of knowledge and the ability to get it across so well prior to our college experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
There may be different routes, but you need certification - whether that means that a certified teacher take the Praxis in another area or a student completes a Master's in education (having earned an undergrad in some other field).

Sadly, a Master's is the norm, which means that people entering with an undergraduate field will be overlooked. Furthermore, what you appear to not understand is the importance of strategies. Having a degree in chemistry means shit unless you know HOW to teach the content to students.

So while some private school educator is walking around with PhD credentials, if educational repertoire is lacking (as in no techniques or devices to help with student mastery), what good is s/he?

And no - you cannot find "lots of public schools with non-certified teachers on the faculty." That's BS.

You're not in the field, correct?

Anonymous wrote:Public school teachers may have to be on a path toward certification, but they don't necessarily have to be certified. Various alternative paths to certification have been developed to accommodate recent college grads who didn't take ed courses or people transitioning from other professions mid-career. Also, in many places, public schools now include charter schools and some jurisdictions don't require the same certification in charters as in conventional public schools. So you can find lots of public schools with uncertified teachers on the faculty.

On the other side of the coin, some privates won't hire teachers unless they have certification and to a parent who has chosen one of those schools, what other private schools do is largely irrelevant.

In the end all the lines are blurry at this point, so it's a school- or system-specific question.

Private schools have a way of determining if a PhD (or Masters holder) is qualified to teach or not real quick. If they can't hack it, their contracts don't get renewed. Perhaps for this reason more than any other, private schools tend to retain very good teachers with or without teacher certification.