Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by notmyuserlogin » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 9:35 PM UTC

reducesuffering wrote: post #149

germinalphrase wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I taught in a moderately wealthy suburb of Minneapolis. With ten years of experience, my comp was about 50k. While I have heard stories of teachers from prior generations receiving somewhat lavish defined benefit pensions, I don’t believe that has been an option for new teachers in decades. With regard to vacations, we had the school calendar vacations (which is fine), but otherwise I accrued about 8 days of PTO per…

For another anecdote, someone I know teaching private with 0 years experience in the Bay Area / Silicon Valley makes $80k.

Public school in WA state, Masters degree, first year I'm making about $75k.

The trick is that it will take me 16 years to get to the top of the pay scale and make what I made as a software developer last year ($115K). When the union asks what I want, that is what I tell them. Top pay is fine, but it takes too long to get there.

I like the job a lot more and its only about three times as much work.

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

#172

Post by wharvle » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 9:38 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #165

wharvle wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

“Tested grades and subjects” includes math basically everywhere. Those weren’t considered here.

Again, you may be right, but this study doesn’t really support what you’re claiming.

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

#173

Post by Detrytus » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 9:39 PM UTC

ejb999 wrote: post #85

trealira wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in the future, to entice people to become public teachers, or at least to stem the bleeding of current teachers, they'll allow teachers to work less. Instead of one teacher teaching a class/subject (like math) 5 days a week, two teachers will rotate, one teaching math 3 days per week, and the other teaching 2 days per week. But then, that would require them to double their supply of teachers, which seems unlike…

work less? in my state they are contractually obligated to work just over 900 hours a year - a typical FT employee is expected to work more than twice that (1920 - 2000 hours) depending on vacation benefit. I don't think teachers pay is all that low (at least in my state), when you factor in they only work 50% as many hours - on an hourly basis, teachers (except perhaps the brand new ones) make pretty good hourly rat…

> contractually obligated to work just over 900 hours a year

Are you making a mistake to confuse hours spent teaching in class with working hours? Teachers have a lot of other duties outside the classroom, preparing the lesson plans and grading papers being the most obvious examples.

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

#174

Post by notmyuserlogin » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 9:40 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #163

germinalphrase wrote: post #4

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 ca…

I did an online masters in teaching while working full time for less than $6K. When figuring out costs be sure to remember that you pay tuition for your observations and student teaching as well as your regular class time. Those add up to 4-5 months of full time unpaid work in a classroom.

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

#175

Post by paulcole » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 9:48 PM UTC

reducesuffering wrote: post #154

paulcole wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I promise you, this site is not as special as you think it is. The majority of people here are incredibly average (like me!), just fortunate to be born at the right time, be exposed to technology at the right time, get a few other lucky breaks, and of course put some work in. It’s super easy to convince yourself that because you’re successful you must be special. Remember that people tend to ascribe their successes t…

You would be average if you actually thought this site doesn't have a selection bias out of the world population. If you think HN averages out to a middle of the pack student, people who spend their free time reading text, you have quite the social bubble around you. There's also like 25 $1b+ founder/ceo's out of 50k.

Believe it or not the world has a lot of people who are above average whose lives don’t revolve around computers. There’s just as many losers here as anywhere.

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

#176

Post by yencabulator » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 10:00 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #39

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…

Regardless of the weighing, company 1 is the only one meeting all standards, and thus should be the only one qualified.

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

#177

Post by mplewis » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 10:35 PM UTC

There’s obviously no way this finding is true.

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

#178

Post by Someone » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 10:41 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #153

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-...

I think that explains my observations.

FTA: “New Jersey’s waiver policy was similar. Candidates could earn a temporary credential before passing the normal licensure exams or completing a teacher preparation program. The licenses were good for one year, at which point candidates would need to go back, pass the tests and complete their training”

So, those people would have a job for a year, but in that time also would study to pass “the normal licensure exams”?

I would think that strongly selects for people motivated to teach.

Also, did they really have to _earn_ a temporary credential? The answer to that question seems to be “yes”. Google gives me https://www.nj.gov/education/covid19/teacherresources/instru..., which says:

“Candidates who have met all requirements for a CE or Certificate of Eligibility with Advanced Standing (CEAS) but have not yet passed the basic skills test and/or test of subject matter knowledge are eligible for the Temporary CE”

Doesn’t that mean people who got that waiver are educated as teachers, but haven’t managed to pass all exams (most of them likely not because they can’t pass them but because there wasn’t any opportunity to do them)?

I couldn’t find the regulation for Massachusetts, so I couldn’t check whether it had similar provisions (https://www.doe.mass.edu/licensure/emergency/ Probably comes close, but it mentions a program extension, and becomes confusing to me because of that)

Also FTA: “Starting June 2020, Massachusetts began temporarily letting anyone with a bachelor’s degree teach”

So, it’s not “without degrees”, but “without teaching degrees”, at least in Massachusetts (the article isn’t clear as to whether New Jersey had a similar restriction, but it had. See the link above)

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

#179

Post by amluto » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 10:47 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #39

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…

> We are not told any information about categories being weighted and therefore we cannot pay special attention to the low safety score.

This is extra hilarious because, if you don’t know the weighting (or even that each score is linear), then adding the scores in the first place is an invalid operation.

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

#180

Post by xboxnolifes » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 10:54 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #144

billdueber wrote: post #136

Reminder to everyone commenting here: you are not an average student. The hard part of teaching is not coming up with dynamite lessons for kids who are smart and want to learn and are capable of doing so and aren’t hungry. Anyone can do that. Well, almost anyone. Way back in the olden times, 5 to 10% of people went to school, and it worked really well for them. Now everyone goes to school, and it works really well fo…

I promise you, this site is not as special as you think it is. The majority of people here are incredibly average (like me!), just fortunate to be born at the right time, be exposed to technology at the right time, get a few other lucky breaks, and of course put some work in. It’s super easy to convince yourself that because you’re successful you must be special. Remember that people tend to ascribe their successes t…

Even if you believe you have average intelligence, it's without doubt that there are many more students in school with lower motivation. To the point that getting them to write a paragraph is like pulling teeth. The difference between the students in the AP classes when I was in high school and the students in the A or B level classes was night and day in terms of just paying attention or being able to give any answer to a question.

There's only so much you can do to make a subject interesting when the students care so little about their education. It starts at a young age and just compounds. By the time you see them as students in high school, they're already years behind in motivation and education.