S wanted to wait before deciding whether and what graduate/professional degree he MAY want. We wanted him to just plow ahead but he wanted to be purposeful and only get what made sense to him–masters in engineering, MBA, law degree or certificates or NONE of them. We will just have to wait and see how it decides to proceed. So far, he’s happy with his career and no further education.
In my state, you can teach with a Bachelor’s degree and teaching credentials. However, like others have mentioned, pay increases with a Master’s Degree. Pretty much all the teachers work on their Master’s on a part-time basis.
Your D may want to look into Master’s programs where you are put into the classroom while working on the Master’s. My boss’ D just applied for one at UW-it’s very selective and much of the cost is covered by the program. There are several others in Seattle-area colleges, she tells me. I’m sure other states also have such programs. She would finish with the credential, the Masters, AND experience in the classroom. Not sure how it would affect pay, but it’s an option for someone with no teaching background.
In Ca at a public school you need a Ca teaching credential, Masters not required.That can be done usually at a state school in one year post BA. My SIL has a Masters that she got at night while teaching. She already had her credential. She did it because in her district a Masters gets you a higher salary. Her D will do the same after she gets her BA.
We have several friends who teach HS. They all began teaching with the credential and later went back for the Masters while still working.
In Ca your most bang for your buck is to get the credential at one of the California State University campuses. From what I’ve hear the advice is to get the credential in the part of the state you want to work. Many districts in our area hire from the student teacher pool. Spanish speaking and Special Ed jobs credentials are highly sought after.
The politics/process around this has changed some what. The prevailing wisdom that my daughter heard was to not get her Masters right away but to get it later.
I had my masters when I started public school work in this state because in my profession it is required for licensure which I needed to get SDE certification.
BUT I took the required post masters courses when I was able to. The reality was that even though I never became an administrator, or language arts consultant…those courses made me a better public school educator overall.
Many folks in education get their masters or post masters degrees in things that aren’t necessarily going to change their careers.
But I see your point. Maybe this person won’t like actually teaching…which is VERY different than being a teaching assistant. VERY different!
If anything, I would,suggest this aspiring teacher take some special education courses ASAP if she already hasn’t done so. Every public school teacher will have student with disabilities in their classrooms…and it’s good to have some info.
dragonmom is right: it can be more difficult to get a job as a new teacher with a master’s, because they have to pay you more,
It all depends on the school district. Our district actually wanted folks with masters degrees…and experience. It was a suburban district with high standards, and the willingness to pay for that experience.
YMMV as they say.
Not sure if mentioned previously, but in my home state, I was told (by friends who are teachers) that it is actually better , or at least easier, to secure a job first without the Masters, and pursue the Masters during the summers. They shared that districts prefer to hire Bachelor candidates first because their pay rate is lower to start.
See my post above yours.
YMMV.
I interviewed candidates for my school district numerous times. Our district wanted experience…and a masters degree. That was their preference.
They definitely wanted experience…but in our state, a masters ins required within five or,six years anyway. So most folks applying with any significant experience…had the masters already.
I had heard that the masters might make it harder for you to find employment, but my daughter (she is in her 4th year teaching) and her friends that graduated the credential/MAT program with her, had no problem finding jobs, and did not feel there was any preference one way or the other. They are working in the Southern California area. The first few years of teaching are very time-consuming, she is really glad she had already had gotten her masters.
I’ve heard the rumor that you’re more likely to be hired without an MA but I’ve never heard of it happening in reality. The several thousand dollars it’d cost the school is a complete drop in the bucket relative to their total budget. I actually just got my 30 extra credits, which entitles me to an additional $6k per year - and teachers try to move up the salary scale all the time. I didn’t ask for permission or anything, I just did it. Someone who has only a BA one year might have an MA+30 the next year, so I doubt principals make important hiring decisions on something that could fluctuate so easily. Plus, of course, I’d assume they want to hire the right person, who might have more experience/skills/knowledge, as opposed to saving a few thousand bucks. This is NY though, where you have to get an MA within 5 years.
I will say that I found my MA next to useless. If I wasn’t required to get it, and the pay difference wasn’t so drastic, I’d be doing some retroactive reflection right now on whether that was worth $50k and a year of my life.
H had an undergraduate degree in economics, years of experience in the financial industry, an MBA, a CFA, and got a masters in education. He could not find a job as a math teacher in our area. He finally gave up. Our own HS hired a graduate straight out of the University of Maine with only a BA. Cheaper hire. Of course, she probably has a master’s by now.
A part of that in addition to being reluctant to pay more for graduate degree holders is the bureaucratic tendency of some school administrations/board of eds to insist on the prospective teacher having a bachelor’s degree/major in the specific school subject(i.e. math if teaching math, History/Social Studies/government if teaching social studies/history/govt, etc.
Recalled some outrage in the local papers 2+ decades ago while I was in high school over the NYC board of ed rejecting a fresh Harvard College graduate from teaching history/social studies/government because her undergraduate major was East Asian Studies…despite the fact her major/concentration was closely related to the fields she wanted to teach.
Similarly, it wouldn’t surprise me that the same level of bureaucratic inflexibility would cause them to reject math-related majors such as engineers, CS, or Economics because they weren’t math majors.
In my school district I’m told they prefer hiring dual-certified teachers that they can re-assign if necessary. I believe in NY a teacher must earn a Master’s within five years of being hired?
I also had a BA in Economics and chose to become a teacher as a senior in college. Too late to student teach or get certified. So I went to grad school nights and summers while teaching in a private school. Got my MEd, but learned certification and credit for student teaching was denied by the Mass Education Dept. The Dean of my grad school let me down after promising me my three years of teaching experience would be sufficient.
Because I did it backwards they wanted me to take two years of courses before I could student teach. As a Dean at a different school put it, “We want to get enough money from you before we let you get what you need from us,” Oh, really? So my lesson is to get what credentials you need now, and then worry about getting your Master’s later.
Here the trend has been toward less difference in pay with a Master’s degree. The reason is that they used to pay more and people were getting MA to check the box, but the district was not seeing better results, just higher costs. Starting pay for a new teacher with BA/BS is just over 50K. With MA it goes up 1K. More valuable to have more experience than credits. The good thing is that having a Master’s degree will not likely be an obstacle to hiring since the cost increase is negligible.
OP, I would teach and get MA over the first few years. Balance the cost of the MA with the increased pay. For me, it was not worth getting the MA as I will not work as a teacher long enough to pay for the extra cost of the degree.
Here is a link to the teacher salary scale for the district that my daughter teaches in: http://nmusd-ca.schoolloop.com/file/1281197594254/1246559508790/561603266115719012.pdf . It varies by school district, but she also got credit for all of the college math classes. Evidently math is considered a “shortage area”.
Another thing to consider, in California, in order to “clear” their credential they must complete an “induction program”, (formerly called BTSA) which takes two years, within their first 5 years of teaching. Most districts pay for it, but it is just something else you have to do your first two years as a teacher. Here is a link that kind of explains it: https://www.sandiegounified.org/induction-program-formerly-btsa
The issue is not Bachelor’s versus Master’s, but whether she can earn a stable living on a teacher’s salary. In my area, starting salary of $40k (we have a low cost of living) is barely enough to pay the living expenses. Your daughter should research the pay scales at the schools she might be interested in teaching.
In PA the trend was to configure the pay scale so teachers would reach the top in 10-15 years. Then the increases would be nominal from that point until retirement, but healthcare always increased with each contract renewal, so essentially it was either a wash, or a pay cut.
The teachers who earned a degree to advance to administration were the ones who made money. They also had significantly more headaches and put in lots and lots of hours.
If $40K is not enough to live as a single person, then you are not in a low cost of living area.