Live data from Hacker News

Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

the74million.org

161–170 of 209 posts

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#161

I am very close to obtaining an elementary school teaching degree (46 of 49 credits completed), and as of this year I am a full time teacher at a private school (which doesn't have to care whether I officially have a license). My masters program is considered among the best in the state. Unfortunately, I don't have many good things to say about my masters program. The majority of my classes have been interesting but…

This answer made me unreasonably angry. Apparently to become a teacher in New York, you're not allowed to use your brain. "We are not told any information about categories being weighted and therefore we cannot pay special attention to the low safety score." means exactly the following when you're talking about a playground : "Congratulations, all the kids love this creative, high quality playground! Unfortunately th…

> "Congratulations, all the kids love this creative, high quality playground! Unfortunately they're all at the hospital."

The company even optimised the number of children who can experience it! A child in the hospital is one who got to use the playground, _and_ one who isn't hogging it, stopping others from experiencing it.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#162

Note that The 74 is an anti-union, pro-privatization, conservative advocacy (disguised as news) site funded by groups like The Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation . https://truthout.org/articles/campbell-brown-the-new-leader-...

Is the data they uncover dangerous?

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#163

As a former high school teacher, I am in favor of reduced requirements to enter the profession; however, I taught in two states that supported these types of on ramps, and they didn’t seem to make a notable impact on applicant numbers (that is, out of the hundreds of educators I worked with over the years, I knew only one who came in via a non-traditional pathway after working in a different field (engineering)). Tha…

Maybe not significant numbers, but my wife and I have both thought about switching (along with a move to a lower COL area) as an exit ramp from the corporate rat race.

I have a BA in economics and a 20+ year career in software. As best we can tell, in order to teach middle or high school in VA (I’d want to teach CS/IT) I need to obtain a Masters in Education to do so. Spending $30k+ on a post-graduate degree for a career with starting pay 1/4 of my current income doesn’t make any sense.

If there was an on-job path to certification it would be viable. But the expense of taking a year off work to get a Masters pretty well kills it.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#164

I am very close to obtaining an elementary school teaching degree (46 of 49 credits completed), and as of this year I am a full time teacher at a private school (which doesn't have to care whether I officially have a license). My masters program is considered among the best in the state. Unfortunately, I don't have many good things to say about my masters program. The majority of my classes have been interesting but…

Seems about right for "Science and Technology", a variant of this question also shows up in German IHK (chamber of commerce) exams for software developer certifications, with a similar expected answer.

Although you do sometimes get weights… the important part is explaining that you evaluate some weighted sum and take the best result.

How much impact would this question have on the final result for the licensure exam?

IIRC during my own IHK examination this was worth around 5pp, which is almost enough to drop you an entire grade.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#165
post #98

A lot of my teacher acquaintances have this mistaken idea that they should be paid a lot more because they are “teaching the next generation” or any other variation of that delusion. They don’t seem to understand that the reason they don’t make a lot is because a lot of people can do the job. As we can see from this story.

TFA: > Because most did not teach tested grades and subjects, the researchers also looked at evaluation ratings. Both groups of teachers received similar marks from their supervisors. (Borrowing reasthenotes1’s quote elsewhere in the thread) What you wrote may or may not be true, but this study doesn’t do much to support it.

It’s unambiguously true. Look at how many people graduate with an education major vs other majors such as mathematics or engineering. If you deny that a mathematics degree is significantly more difficult than an education degree then I have nothing more to say.

The story supports the idea that many people could be childhood educators based on the fact that the program was not scrapped, the degreeless teachers weren’t sacked, and the customers were apparently satisfied.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please not get into the homeschool flame war here again? Every time it comes up it turns into a pointless war of anecdotes, because the data on outcomes simply isn't strong enough for it to be anything else (trust me, I've tried).

The thread started with a public school flaming. Why only step in when someone takes the other side? I agree these flame wars are silly, but this thread was lost from the start.

I already explained my reasoning for where I put the comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39069617

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#167

Note that The 74 is an anti-union, pro-privatization, conservative advocacy (disguised as news) site funded by groups like The Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation . https://truthout.org/articles/campbell-brown-the-new-leader-...

Is the data they uncover dangerous?

I think the implication is that it may be misrepresented or cherry-picked in a way that strengthens their argument against public education. Not that every outlet isn't biased in some way, but this is a group with a known strong bias.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#168

I am very close to obtaining an elementary school teaching degree (46 of 49 credits completed), and as of this year I am a full time teacher at a private school (which doesn't have to care whether I officially have a license). My masters program is considered among the best in the state. Unfortunately, I don't have many good things to say about my masters program. The majority of my classes have been interesting but…

This answer made me unreasonably angry. Apparently to become a teacher in New York, you're not allowed to use your brain. "We are not told any information about categories being weighted and therefore we cannot pay special attention to the low safety score." means exactly the following when you're talking about a playground : "Congratulations, all the kids love this creative, high quality playground! Unfortunately th…

All of the federal "can you walk and chew gum" hiring tests are booby-trapped like this. The highest tier of scores go to the people who follow instructions literally and without regard to context, and who never apply their own moral judgment.

In the above example the last company is clearly sacrificing lives to get work done.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#169

The school district I went to had a policy that the teachers are required to have a related masters degree in the subject they’re teaching. It was a great school district since the teachers were all formerly non teachers at one point. My social studies teacher was a lawyer before, physics teacher actually published some papers as a physicists. The downside is the property tax ballooned out of control but I got a grea…

Entire states are like this, and it doesn't work out that way at scale. Teachers get degrees to teach, and are buried under a mountain of debt while not being paid for it. On top of that, they need to take "continuing education" credits, which ostensibly is a way to stay on top of teaching trends but is really a racket for the teaching-adjacent industry. I don't think my state required the masters degree, but pay sca…

Entire countries do this. Seems to work fine for them.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#170

I am very close to obtaining an elementary school teaching degree (46 of 49 credits completed), and as of this year I am a full time teacher at a private school (which doesn't have to care whether I officially have a license). My masters program is considered among the best in the state. Unfortunately, I don't have many good things to say about my masters program. The majority of my classes have been interesting but…

What’s the point of a question like this? Somewhere someone will have written down something they want teachers to be able to do and that will have been translated into a question like this. Was the original requirement bad or the translation into the question? What kind of system would lead to a better question?

>What’s the point of a question like this?

To filter out people with the capacity and inclination to engage in critical thinking, because those people will not last as teachers.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NMoLJuDJEms7Ku9XS/guessing-t...

Post reply on HN