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Is the solution to avoid hiring education majors for education jobs, preferring instead people with degrees relevant to the subject? One aspect of academia and

Is the solution to avoid hiring education majors for education jobs, preferring instead people with degrees relevant to the subject? One aspect of academia and academic training is that it is not built primarily to produce teachers, but instead to produce researchers. Johns Hopkins started this trend back in the 1800s, turning professors from teachers into researchers. All other major educational institutions largely followed suit. Because academia is engaged in self-reproduction, they no longer really instruct anyone in teaching (as most of us find out when dealing with grossly incompetent TAs in discussion section), instead their graduate and masters students learn to be researchers. Maybe the trouble with schools is that they don't train people engaged in disciplines how to teach their discipline, instead relying on people specifically schooled in 'education' in the abstract to teach whatever course administrators deem necessary.

jseliger 17y ago
"Is the solution to avoid hiring education majors for education jobs, preferring instead people with degrees relevant to the subject?" (Note: the response below is regarding primary and secondary schools.) Perhaps: but school districts and teachers unions generally require education degrees, and frequently education M.A.s, for teachers. Alternately, some districts effectively make the M.A. required for salary reasons; in Seattle public schools, for example, the M.A. leads to a $6 – 10K/year pay jump. You'd be a fool not to get one, even if the degree is useless. Consequently, even if you took some enterprising principal who decided education degrees were useless, the pay structure and district policy would probably prevent that person from doing away with them.
HistoryInAction 17y ago
I agree. I forget who told me this, but the US Patent and Trademark Office in DC hires engineers for their engineering disciplines' patent examiner FTE slots. The argument goes that it's easier to take an engineer and give them a smattering of law education than it is to take a lawyer and give them a smattering of engineering education and expect them to understand the utility of a new engineering application or detect whether or not it is novel because they don't understand the technology enough to see what's similar to it. However, as the article demonstrates, a piece-wise comparison of A/B where A is what you've trained for and B is being an educator, A wins for pay in just about every field. B is always a step down in pretty much whatever metric you look at, aside from developing future generations. Simple game theory proves that B is only going to be populated by low-tier individuals who don't have much in the way of other options or those few gems in which the 'developing future generations' is an outsized factor in their decision-making.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  Teaching is a step down in pay, but not in compensation. Teachers get summers off, short working hours, public sector union pensions/health plans, earlier than normal retirement, and ridiculous job security. http://web.missouri.edu/~podgurskym/articles/files/fringe_benefits.pdf http://web.missouri.edu/~podgurskym/articles/files/fringe_be...
  - HistoryInAction 17y ago
    I would argue that when considering a job, most people don't write out and include these sort of benefits in their cost-benefit analysis. I personally consider benefits to be a service that's cost neutral, rather than factoring it into my overall pay. I know that's not accurate, but that's just how my mind works. Also, any self-respecting teacher (especially new ones) will tell you that short official working hours are a mask for quite decent hours spent preparing for the teaching hours.
    - yummyfajitas 17y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by "quite decent", but in general teachers work a little bit less than other full time professionals 9 months out of the year. The other 3 months they work dramatically less. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf
      - HistoryInAction 17y ago
        Sorry for the lack of precision, I mean 40+ hour weeks, much of it unpaid. The rule of thumb that I was told was that you're working about 8 hours of prep for every hour of teaching the first year. Drafting lesson plans, putting together projects, laying out longer term units of study, things like that. They're only paid for the 8 am - 3 pm (35 hours or so a week, though the pay is per hour better), but most teachers I know show up early and work at home grading, preparing dittos, stuff like that. Add in requirements for Continuing Education, administrative tasks, and non-teaching related requirements that most unions/tenure programs require, and I'd still say it's a surprisingly low paid position for the time that goes into it and the long-term effects on the students.

jseliger 17y ago

"Is the solution to avoid hiring education majors for education jobs, preferring instead people with degrees relevant to the subject?" (Note: the response below is regarding primary and secondary schools.) Perhaps: but school districts and teachers unions generally require education degrees, and frequently education M.A.s, for teachers. Alternately, some districts effectively make the M.A. required for salary reasons; in Seattle public schools, for example, the M.A. leads to a $6 – 10K/year pay jump. You'd be a fool not to get one, even if the degree is useless. Consequently, even if you took some enterprising principal who decided education degrees were useless, the pay structure and district policy would probably prevent that person from doing away with them.

HistoryInAction 17y ago

I agree. I forget who told me this, but the US Patent and Trademark Office in DC hires engineers for their engineering disciplines' patent examiner FTE slots. The argument goes that it's easier to take an engineer and give them a smattering of law education than it is to take a lawyer and give them a smattering of engineering education and expect them to understand the utility of a new engineering application or detect whether or not it is novel because they don't understand the technology enough to see what's similar to it. However, as the article demonstrates, a piece-wise comparison of A/B where A is what you've trained for and B is being an educator, A wins for pay in just about every field. B is always a step down in pretty much whatever metric you look at, aside from developing future generations. Simple game theory proves that B is only going to be populated by low-tier individuals who don't have much in the way of other options or those few gems in which the 'developing future generations' is an outsized factor in their decision-making.

yummyfajitas 17y ago
Teaching is a step down in pay, but not in compensation. Teachers get summers off, short working hours, public sector union pensions/health plans, earlier than normal retirement, and ridiculous job security. http://web.missouri.edu/~podgurskym/articles/files/fringe_benefits.pdf http://web.missouri.edu/~podgurskym/articles/files/fringe_be...
- HistoryInAction 17y ago
  I would argue that when considering a job, most people don't write out and include these sort of benefits in their cost-benefit analysis. I personally consider benefits to be a service that's cost neutral, rather than factoring it into my overall pay. I know that's not accurate, but that's just how my mind works. Also, any self-respecting teacher (especially new ones) will tell you that short official working hours are a mask for quite decent hours spent preparing for the teaching hours.
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by "quite decent", but in general teachers work a little bit less than other full time professionals 9 months out of the year. The other 3 months they work dramatically less. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf
    - HistoryInAction 17y ago
      Sorry for the lack of precision, I mean 40+ hour weeks, much of it unpaid. The rule of thumb that I was told was that you're working about 8 hours of prep for every hour of teaching the first year. Drafting lesson plans, putting together projects, laying out longer term units of study, things like that. They're only paid for the 8 am - 3 pm (35 hours or so a week, though the pay is per hour better), but most teachers I know show up early and work at home grading, preparing dittos, stuff like that. Add in requirements for Continuing Education, administrative tasks, and non-teaching related requirements that most unions/tenure programs require, and I'd still say it's a surprisingly low paid position for the time that goes into it and the long-term effects on the students.