The whole “credentialing” business is simply an elaborate scheme to keep teaching jobs in the hands of unionized and often underqualified “teachers”.
Instead of letting a full biology graduate teach biology (perhaps with one year of teacher training), we insist on hiring semi-qualified people with “degrees” in “education” from teacher colleges.
New Jersey was screaming for teachers as well, and put into place a process where someone could get emergency teaching credentials and teach for a full year while earning proper teaching credentials. As my high-tech industry was still in a bust at that point, I looked into getting into this program. Here’s what I found out. My info: I have a BS in Computer Engineering and an MS in Electrical Engineering–both from top 25 U.S. colleges.
1. In order to teach in a specific department, in my case–math, I’d have to have X number of math credits, and Y math credits from courses at or above the 300 level.
Counting all my courses that could be considered math–actual math department courses, plus a Department of Statistics course, and a EE-Math co-listed course, I was 2 300-level-or-above courses short. That’s assuming that I couldn’t count any of the upper-level or graduate level electrical engineering classes that were heavy on the math.
2. I couldn’t take any courses at a community college. I would have to take classes only at accredited 4-year colleges. That meant I’d have to pay the extra money and make the longer drive to one of the state’s 4-year colleges, and hope that they’d have the class available to fit my schedule. However, if I had attended a community college before I attended a 4-year college and took those classes, then those classes would count.
3. I’d send my official transcripts, plus a check for $50, to the state department of education, where some government educrat flunkie would look at my transcripts and let me know three or four months later if I have the proper classes to qualify.
At this point, I accused the government flunkie on the other end of the line of collusion and realized exactly what this program was for. It was to get the state government to give more money to the schools to hire more education graduates to teach. Apparently, a master’s degree in electrical engineering didn’t qualify me to teach high school math as much as someone with an education degree who took a few math courses in college.
