And just like that...

[Alpha]

you don't need a college degree to be a school teacher
States Crack Open the Door to Teachers Without College Degrees (edweek.org)

[MNomadic]

Speedrun to the collapse of education and critical thinking!

[Alpha]

this too
Military veterans without bachelor's degree now allowed to teach in Florida | WEAR (weartv.com)

[dfrecore]

Speedrun to the collapse of education and critical thinking!

If you think that having a bachelor's degree = critical thinking, you are sadly mistaken.  Plenty of college students today don't think critically, and plenty of teacher's don't encourage their students to do it either.

If this was the case, btw, our K-12 education system would be churning out the best and the brightest the world has to offer, and I'm not seeing it.

[jsd]

And these are the same states that will point to their failing, self-sabotaged schools as proof that school should be further privatized.

[freeloader]

Speedrun to the collapse of education and critical thinking!

If you think that having a bachelor's degree = critical thinking, you are sadly mistaken.  Plenty of college students today don't think critically, and plenty of teacher's don't encourage their students to do it either.

If this WERE the case, btw, our K-12 education system would be churning out the best and the brightest the world has to offer, and I'm not seeing it.

I corrected it for you. It is subjunctive.  
—Public school graduate.

[MNomadic]

Speedrun to the collapse of education and critical thinking!

If you think that having a bachelor's degree = critical thinking, you are sadly mistaken. 

I didn't say that. But continuing to lower the standards for someone to teach, while keeping the pay low, will not bring the best qualified people to teach our students. I'm not saying the education system is currently churning out the best and brightest critical thinkers, I'm saying that it's only going to get worse if we take actions like these to quell the "teacher shortage." 

I say this as someone who spent a year as a teacher before leaving for an entry level corporate job to make a lot more than my boss did with 30+ years teaching experience.

[bjcheung77]

There usually are fine lines for which you want a teacher to have before they can teach, I can see this happening for teaching the arts, such as dancing, drawing, theatre, or even the trades where they need experience in hands-on fields. There are some that you would want to keep teachers with better qualifications, such as a Masters or Doctoral degree in, such as the engineering, health, science fields.

In the article, it mentions that the "teacher" without the degree will be supervised by one that is currently teaching, if that's the case, it gives them the option to "ladder" up while they continue onwards towards that degree, this gives them a head start and can get licensure/degree probably faster that way. Hopefully they don't change the rules around that students lose their chance at a better education...

[bluebooger]

Speedrun to the collapse of education and critical thinking!

like that hasn't already happened

https://wirepoints.org/how-can-84-of-chi...uickpoint/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/polic...acher-says

https://campusreform.org/article?id=18679

[dfrecore]

I was a long-term sub for a semester, teaching Intro to Computers at a local high school. I guarantee you, you do not need a degree to teach this course. Bare minimum, you'd do well to have some certs under your belt, but honestly, a degree is just not necessary to teach this. A high school kid could teach it, if they had some training in how to teach.

There are PLENTY of other subjects where a degree isn't necessary; or a degree in that subject isn't necessary. I could teach Freshman English. I could teach Health. I could easily teach math through Algebra II, but I don't have a math degree. I taught it to my kids though. I would love to do it, but to be a high school math teacher you need to take calculus, even if you don't want to teach calc. I would be happy teaching remedial math to kids, but they won't let me do it because I haven't taken Calculus.

You know what's crazy though - I have a Business degree and am therefore able to teach High School business. Guess what kinds of people taught Accounting? If you guessed people that have never actually WORKED in accounting, and have zero real-world experience in it, you guessed right. I have 10+ years of experience in Accounting, HR, Compensation, Stock Options - I could bring a lot more to a business/accounting course than almost any teacher who taught it at my school. They may have the degree (and some probably even have a master's degree), but they don't bring anything to the table that you can't find in a textbook.

I think we spend far too much time making people get a piece of paper; a CompSci course in high school would be far better taught by someone who has a bunch of real-world experience coding, or making websites. Why would someone with a CompSci degree going to want to teach high school kids when they can make FAR better money in the field of CompSci. It makes no sense. We need to come up with better ways to qualify people to teach than a degree.