Wanna be a teacher? Your Ph.D. is no qualification
By Christopher MooreI used to teach high school physics in a public school. I was pretty good at it too. During my tenure I sent more students into college physics programs than any teacher before me. My students chalked up higher scores on standardized physics tests (such as Advanced Placement) than any previous. I began an online venture called ilovephysics.com that connected my classes to technology unheard of before. I loved my job and my employers liked me.
So of course I left the public school system. Not because of unruly students. The students were great. I had no problem with parents. I had plenty of funding for equipment. I made plenty of money ($39,000 for 9 months work isn’t bad at all!)
I left because otherwise, the school system was going to fire me!
I wasn’t qualified to teach. I never got a degree in education. I’d never even taken a course in education. I was a little busy finishing an M.S. degree in Applied Physics. I also never took a linear algebra course as an undergraduate. Apparently, that is required to be qualified to teach physics in Virginia. Nevermind the graduate linear algebra course I took (in which I got an A). My advanced degree and high GRE scores (both regular and physics subject) don’t cut it.
Did it matter that I was qualified to teach both physics and chemistry at the university level? Was my actual previous experience teaching at the university level considered? Nope.
This isn’t just a problem in Virgina. It’s a problem in all fifty states as well as other countries.
Here’s a story about a professor in the UK:
Dr Wolfe has been teaching at the school for two years. The rules are that he should have “qualified teacher status” (QTS). Part of that is a requirement to have at least a grade C in a maths GCSE … There can be no compromise on the need for the QTS …
David Wolfe is emeritus professor of physics at the University of New Mexico, where he used to run the physics department. He has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.
He said it would be easy for him to pass a maths GCSE - a qualification for 15 year olds - but, at 65, he was too old for that sort of thing.
“If there’s one thing that a person who becomes a professor has done, we may not be the cleverest but we’ve passed a lot of exams and I’ve taken enough in my life,” he told BBC News.
He accepts there need to be standards for teachers.
“But there also need to be exceptions made in special circumstances, especially given the situation where there is a great lack of teachers in a given subject like physics or maths.”
You bet. Requirments for “qualified” status need to be flexible. As the article discusses, the UK has added flexibility to its system, so Dr. Wolfe can continue to teach. But the UK’s counterparts in the US have not been so quick to recognize a solution to a problem.
The No Child Left Behind act has actually hampered a states ability to be flexible. Virginia does offer an alternative route to licensure. I initially got a job via this route. The problem is, that No Child Left Behind places a cap on the amount of “unqualified” teachers that a school can have before being labeled “failing”. Schools don’t like the “failing” label, so they avoid “unqualified” teachers at all costs. Virginia’s alternative route has its problems, but No Child Left Behind makes schools less likely to hire teachers that follow it, anyway. So a well intentioned and fairly effective state law has been trumped by federal bueracrats who know nothing of Viginia’s situation.
This is why I was facing a pink slip. In order to be a “qualified” teacher, I would have had to take five education courses, sit for three seperate exams (called PRAXIS), and go take that undergraduate linear algebra course. The school system was willing to pay for some of it, but I would have had to chip in over $1000. Before No Child Left Behind, I wasn’t worried, because the school system didn’t fire good teachers, even if they didn’t jump through all the hoops.
Post No Child Left Behind, I had two years to get it all done or I’d be pointed towards the door.
So I did what any self-respecting person with a graduate degree, cum laude honors, published research, a list of scholarship awards, and multiple private sector job offers would have done. I quit.
So why is there a teacher shortage in math and physics? Hmmmm.
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What about last year, when you started the website, when you taught at a private school where they don’t require all of these teaching classes, and where No Child Left Behind doesn’t matter?
Comment by brian — Wednesday -- October 13th, 2004 @ 9:05 am
I quit the public school system and went to work at a private school. Let me be more clear: I LOVED teaching at the public school I started at. I left that school because I had to (well … I didn’t have to, I just couldn’t jump through the hoops fast enough). I went to St. Catherine’s to avoid hoop jumping. I LOVED teaching at St. Catherine’s. The administration was FAR more supportive and I was ALWAYS treated as a professional. When I jump back into teaching, you can bet that it will be a private school.
A note to those I taught at St. Catherines: Leaving was the hardest decision I have had to make in a long while. Right now we would be through with nasty vectors and I would probably be taking a pounding in the stomach with a sledge hammer. I miss that.
Comment by Chris Moore — Wednesday -- October 13th, 2004 @ 10:34 am
newton
Comment by Anonymous — Thursday -- October 14th, 2004 @ 3:50 pm
Galileo
Comment by Chris Moore — Thursday -- October 14th, 2004 @ 4:10 pm
I’m so glad I found this page… To be honest, I think it’s funny how many politicians and people in political debates are afraid to question “no child left behind” when every educator who has had to deal with it will tell you that it’s garbage.
I really think because of the said “hoops” that you have to jump through to teach, it really ruins the quality of the teachers we have. Personally, I’m now wondering if the reason 3 of the best teachers we had at our school quit because of these regulations (one of which being a PhD.) I notice the replacement for the computer science teacher isn’t even a computer science or math major. Why? I doubt it’s because an English major with no prior experience in programming was the most qualified man they could find to teach outside of these regulations.
Even worse than what we’re seeing right before our eyes is the effects that these changes will have in 1-10 years when these are the students out competing in the real world. I think it is having a huge negative effect outside of highschool as well, and not just because kids got only half an education in a public school.
Comment by Hertz Friar — Sunday -- October 17th, 2004 @ 11:58 am
I can imagine schools have a really hard time getting well qualified computer science teachers (well qualified as in having computer science degrees and experience, not education degrees.) Why teach when you can have a rewarding job in the private sector that pays twice as much?
Although I point out that money is not the fundemental issue. For me, freedom is the most important issue. I liked teaching because of the freedom I had. I get paid almost nothing to do research right now. But I have freedom. I get to play with ideas. I get to build things. I get to discover and explore. And when this gig is up, I’ll most likely go back to teaching, either at a private school or by starting my own private school.
Comment by Chris Moore — Sunday -- October 17th, 2004 @ 1:11 pm
I couldn’t get the trackback thingy to work, so here is my link, and here is my excerpt:
http://blamp.com/blog/2006/04/kips-law-sighting-michigan-education.html
Comment by doink — Monday -- April 24th, 2006 @ 11:11 pm