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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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?[/quote]

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.
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