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My wife, a civil engineer from Georgia Tech, was told she did not have enough college math credits to become a teacher in California. If she wanted to teach her

by apowell 17y ago

My wife, a civil engineer from Georgia Tech, was told she did not have enough college math credits to become a teacher in California. If she wanted to teach here, she would need to take another college math class, such as basic algebra.

skolor 17y ago
To throw my anecdote in there: Several years ago my family moved to Florida to be closer to my grandparents. My mother found out that the only teaching position she was "qualified" to do was as a substitute teacher. She had previously taught several different levels of Science in a different state, had a BS in Biology, a Masters in Chemistry and a Law Degree (Teaching was actually the 5th profession she tried). In order to teach science in Florida, she would be required to take roughly a year and a half worth of college courses, and get a different certification.
- lief79 17y ago
  This is probably closely connected to why Florida is in the bottom 25% of states in terms of school quality. The red tape scares away some of the best teachers. Of course, I'm not sure any of those rankings compensate for social-economic factors that will skew these factors. What I have heard is that the Florida districts really set back the migrant students who ended up in my Mother in Laws classroom in NJ for part of every year. That might be due to them ending up in some of Florida's worst school districts of course.
yummyfajitas 17y ago
A friend of mine from grad school had a similar experience. Her daughter's school was short a math teacher and couldn't offer AP calc (which the daughter wanted to take). She offered to teach a class below calculus to free up a teacher for calc. For free, if necessary. She was told she wasn't qualified. Her degrees: Ph.D. in Math, USA College. B.S. Math, Not USA college. No masters. Her undergrad degree was apparently not sufficient. (I'm obscuring some details to protect the guilty.)
uhybouy 17y ago
30 years experience as teacher/head of a $30K/year private school? No - you aren't qualified to teach in a state school, and the teacher's union welcomes the decision. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristram_Jones-Parry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristram_Jones-Parry

by apowell 17y ago

skolor 17y ago

To throw my anecdote in there: Several years ago my family moved to Florida to be closer to my grandparents. My mother found out that the only teaching position she was "qualified" to do was as a substitute teacher. She had previously taught several different levels of Science in a different state, had a BS in Biology, a Masters in Chemistry and a Law Degree (Teaching was actually the 5th profession she tried). In order to teach science in Florida, she would be required to take roughly a year and a half worth of college courses, and get a different certification.

lief79 17y ago
This is probably closely connected to why Florida is in the bottom 25% of states in terms of school quality. The red tape scares away some of the best teachers. Of course, I'm not sure any of those rankings compensate for social-economic factors that will skew these factors. What I have heard is that the Florida districts really set back the migrant students who ended up in my Mother in Laws classroom in NJ for part of every year. That might be due to them ending up in some of Florida's worst school districts of course.

yummyfajitas 17y ago

A friend of mine from grad school had a similar experience. Her daughter's school was short a math teacher and couldn't offer AP calc (which the daughter wanted to take). She offered to teach a class below calculus to free up a teacher for calc. For free, if necessary. She was told she wasn't qualified. Her degrees: Ph.D. in Math, USA College. B.S. Math, Not USA college. No masters. Her undergrad degree was apparently not sufficient. (I'm obscuring some details to protect the guilty.)

uhybouy 17y ago

30 years experience as teacher/head of a $30K/year private school? No - you aren't qualified to teach in a state school, and the teacher's union welcomes the decision. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristram_Jones-Parry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristram_Jones-Parry