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From my anecdotal experience, maddening red tape like this is much more of a problem for attracting quality teachers than pay is. There are lots of people who

From my anecdotal experience, maddening red tape like this is much more of a problem for attracting quality teachers than pay is. There are lots of people who are smart and driven but don't care much about money; just look at the ranks of the non-profit world. But you have to be a special kind of crazy to want to put up with these Kafkaesque rules.

cwan 17y ago
I suspect this may a primary driver of net based education. Certainly it probably won't replace elementary and primary schools, but if accreditation can be achieved online, then you don't have to fuss with the "middleman" - which in this case often means dealing with arcane rules that protect the tenure of educators versus promoting quality education. I think I remember a Fred Wilson or Paul Kedrosky post a ways back on how home schooling was a particularly attractive market for education delivered over the net as a starting point.
timwiseman 17y ago
This again is anecodotal, but my wife is in the process of working on her master's thesis in history. She went for the master's for personal development reasons, but now that she is close to getting it she started looking at what she wanted to do to pay off the student loans and thought of teaching. Once she finishes she will meet the requirements to apply as a full instructor at the multiple community colleges within commuting distance, and as and adjunct professor/instructor at both the local 4 year college and the university she is about to graduate from. To teach at the public high schools though, she will need to go back and complete classes in education the equivalent of another full-time year in college.
- lief79 17y ago
  Practically speaking, at a minimum, she should be required to demonstrate an ability to student teach for a half year before being hired. There are definitely some tricks to running a good classroom, but I have no idea if the education courses are in anyway connected to what is needed for the real experience. At a minimum, I would hope they would provide some guidance in how to compensate for different learning styles, how to properly handle difficult students, etc.

cwan 17y ago

I suspect this may a primary driver of net based education. Certainly it probably won't replace elementary and primary schools, but if accreditation can be achieved online, then you don't have to fuss with the "middleman" - which in this case often means dealing with arcane rules that protect the tenure of educators versus promoting quality education. I think I remember a Fred Wilson or Paul Kedrosky post a ways back on how home schooling was a particularly attractive market for education delivered over the net as a starting point.

timwiseman 17y ago

This again is anecodotal, but my wife is in the process of working on her master's thesis in history. She went for the master's for personal development reasons, but now that she is close to getting it she started looking at what she wanted to do to pay off the student loans and thought of teaching. Once she finishes she will meet the requirements to apply as a full instructor at the multiple community colleges within commuting distance, and as and adjunct professor/instructor at both the local 4 year college and the university she is about to graduate from. To teach at the public high schools though, she will need to go back and complete classes in education the equivalent of another full-time year in college.

lief79 17y ago
Practically speaking, at a minimum, she should be required to demonstrate an ability to student teach for a half year before being hired. There are definitely some tricks to running a good classroom, but I have no idea if the education courses are in anyway connected to what is needed for the real experience. At a minimum, I would hope they would provide some guidance in how to compensate for different learning styles, how to properly handle difficult students, etc.