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So I have decided to go for my Master's in Education. I really want to teach in private schools. I am passionate about independent and progressive education, and I would take a position as a private school teacher over public in a heartbeat if offered both.
So here's my dilemma. I'd ideally like to get both my Master's and credential at the same time, because--despite my strong preference for private school teaching--those jobs are much more scarce. If I have my credential, at least I could get a public school job while waiting to get hired at a private school.
However, there are some programs that look really appealing to me, but that only grant the M.Ed, with no credential (Johns Hopkins, UPenn, etc).
I'm not sure if I should cross these off my lists because they don't offer the credential. I know getting certified AND getting my Master's is the most practical option and the best bang for my buck.
But I guess my question is: are private school jobs REALLY that much more scarce and hard to get? If I'm open to teaching K - 12 and have a Master's from an elite school like Johns Hopkins or UPenn, will I hypothetically have a decently easy time at getting hired?
Or should I do the practical thing and get certified, just in case?
Considering that half of new teachers don't make it five years, I think you should go the route that gets you into the classroom the fastest. Attending an "elite" school or working at a private school won't matter any more if you decide you no longer want to teach.
Note that I'm assuming you're not a teacher yet because you're asking about becoming certified.
Considering that half of new teachers don't make it five years, I think you should go the route that gets you into the classroom the fastest. Attending an "elite" school or working at a private school won't matter any more if you decide you no longer want to teach.
Note that I'm assuming you're not a teacher yet because you're asking about becoming certified.
Thanks for responding.
Well, either program will be a year at most. So hypothetically, I'll be in the classroom at about the same time. That's assuming, however, that I can realistically get a job as a private school teacher just as/at least somewhat as easily as a public school teacher.
I'm also considering opening my own tutoring business down the line, so having a degree from an elite school would definitely help me set higher rates for myself at that point. Of course, being a good teacher and tutor is most important. But, whether it's shallow or not, tutors that went to Harvard vs Cal State Fullerton are usually going to be able to command higher rates, and parents are willing to pay them because of the real or imagined superiority of the tutor.
Where are you planning to teach because what you are posting is not relevant to the northeast.
Public school teaching is much more desirable here than private schools. Private schools may or may not be religion-affiliated. Where I live, the preference for the elite is the public schools not private. No one here cares about a fancy degree from a fancy college for teaching. No one here cares about that for tutoring.
Tutoring market is over saturated with chain places. Best tutors are hired through world of mouth. People who hire tutors, even in low income areas, have some sort of income. I gather that you wish to work with low income at-risk students. They don't hire tutors unless they get them for free through a program at school.
Maybe, you should consider a charter school. The ones here are usually low-income minority students, but obviously their parents care enough about education to fill out the forms needed for enrollment and getting in the lottery.
No one in my area will hire you without certification in a public and most private schools. Maybe in a private school if you have some special credential such as PhD (not a EdD) and can help the students with research projects.
I believe that the highest ranking graduate program according to US News for teaching (not administration or ed leadership) is MSU and UM. My advice is to attend a school in the area where you want to teach. You will need to do student teaching and that can get you some connections for a future job. If you want to go into academia and do research in the education field, then consider Harvard, Peabody, Teachers College, etc.
BTW, private tutors here with a good reputation through word of mouth get 60 (for elementary subjects) to 150 for SAT and specialized high school exams. Sylvan Tutoring pays their teachers 15 an hour. No one ever asked me what school did I attend for teaching. Just get their kid to improve their grades or test scores. That's all parents care about. No tutoring company will hire an uncertified teacher.
Where are you planning to teach because what you are posting is not relevant to the northeast.
...So you've never heard of Phillips Exeter, Phillips Andover, Taft, Choate Rosemary, Dalton, Spence, Trinity, Deerfield, Groton, Milton...the list goes and on.
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Public school teaching is much more desirable here than private schools. Private schools may or may not be religion-affiliated. Where I live, the preference for the elite is the public schools not private. No one here cares about a fancy degree from a fancy college for teaching. No one here cares about that for tutoring.
Where do you live? Because all of the above schools (and many others like them) are in the northeast.
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Tutoring market is over saturated with chain places. Best tutors are hired through world of mouth. People who hire tutors, even in low income areas, have some sort of income. I gather that you wish to work with low income at-risk students. They don't hire tutors unless they get them for free through a program at school.
I said in my post that I want to open my own private tutoring business, not get hired at a tutoring center. And no, I don't want to work with low income at-risk students. Not sure where you gathered that from.
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No one in my area will hire you without certification in a public and most private schools. Maybe in a private school if you have some special credential such as PhD (not a EdD) and can help the students with research projects.
Again, wondering where you live because I've checked the faculty directory of many of those prestigious private schools, and many of the teachers have either just a Bachelor's or a Bachelor's and Master's. Some have their certification as well, but not the majority.
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BTW, private tutors here with a good reputation through word of mouth get 60 (for elementary subjects) to 150 for SAT and specialized high school exams. Sylvan Tutoring pays their teachers 15 an hour. No one ever asked me what school did I attend for teaching. Just get their kid to improve their grades or test scores. That's all parents care about. No tutoring company will hire an uncertified teacher.
Again, never said I want to be hired by a tutoring company. However, you're wrong about the last statement anyway. I was hired as a Princeton Review SAT tutor after only having completed my freshman year of college.
I guess because you said something about being passionate about education that your interest lay with helping low risk students. Sorry for my misinterpretation.
Yes, you can get a job as a SAT tutor by demonstrating that you obtained high scores on the SAT. That is true. I thought you were interested in teaching specific subject matter, not test prep. There are of course, private tutors for test prep, but since you were interested in attending at pre-service program for teaching a specific subject, I thought that may be what you wished to tutor. I know exactly what it is like to set up a private tutoring company. People usually do that after having years of experience with public school students of all ages in order to understand the current local curricula. If this is your ultimate goal, then you don't need an advanced degree. But you do need a lot of experience both in business and in the local education environment.
Again, you didn't state what location you wanted. The environment is very variable in the US and the requirements/working conditions in one region may not apply to other regions. If you are interested in the elite privates like Dalton, Bramford Nightingale, Horace Mann, that's a different matter and again, a degree from one of the name brand schools does not necessarily open doors there. DM me if you wish to apply to Dalton for next year. Dalton also hires people without degrees to teach vocational type of subjects. For example, my friend retired there after teaching set decoration for almost 30 years. They're fully staffed right now. If you are interested in tutoring for the GRE, LSAT, a couple of young guys who have a tutoring business for the past couple of years on Madison Ave. just reached out to me. They only offer services for grad school exams but they pay 120-200 per session. Let me know and I'll forward the information to you.
You already answered your own question about whether private schools are scarce. No, they are not. Yes, it's hard to get into the ones that you mentioned but you didn't state those schools were your goal schools. There are thousands of private schools of different types, affiliations, grade levels across the country.
I guess because you said something about being passionate about education that your interest lay with helping low risk students. Sorry for my misinterpretation.
This might be a misinterpretation of my own, and if so, I apologize. But it kind of sounds like you may think that being passionate about education and not wanting to teach low risk students are mutually exclusive. Maybe you don't, but actually a lot of people see it that way, and it's ridiculous to me. I don't get why so many people think that teachers need to be martyrs and saints and think nothing of their own desires and preferences.
The fact that I want to work in a beautiful, secure school with a strong community, involved parents (at least at non-boarding), flexibility and breadth in curriculum (many of the elite prep schools have as many course offerings as a small college), small classes to teach and the chance to really get to know each of my students, less behavioral issues to contend with, and enough funded resources to actually do my job...That doesn't I'm less passionate about education than a public school teacher. To me, all it means is that I have my own desires and preferences to consider for my well-being and happiness.
Going on a bit of a tangent here, and you may not have meant it that way anyhow, but this perception irks me. Teaching seems to be one of the few professions that society views this way, and it's bizarre.
If a business student said he wanted to get a consulting job at Google or Goldman Sachs, no one would bat an eye. They would most likely think that his ambition was admirable. I doubt that -anyone- would say: "Oh, you should really try to work as a business consultant for small, failing mom-and-pop shops because they're the ones that really need you."
Or how about a doctor? Doctors are in the profession of helping others just as much, if not more, than teachers. But if a med student got a job at a well-known, well-funded hospital, would anyone say "You should go work for a run-down clinic in a poor neighborhood instead because those people need you more? You must not be passionate about healing people if you take a job anywhere else." I really doubt it.
So then why are teachers the only ones that are supposed to be endlessly altruistic and are expected to work in the very worst conditions, less they be thought of as somehow less noble and less passionate about education?
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Yes, you can get a job as a SAT tutor by demonstrating that you obtained high scores on the SAT. That is true. I thought you were interested in teaching specific subject matter, not test prep. There are of course, private tutors for test prep, but since you were interested in attending at pre-service program for teaching a specific subject, I thought that may be what you wished to tutor. I know exactly what it is like to set up a private tutoring company. People usually do that after having years of experience with public school students of all ages in order to understand the current local curricula. If this is your ultimate goal, then you don't need an advanced degree. But you do need a lot of experience both in business and in the local education environment.
Well, at least at the Princeton Review where I was hired, they said that after I taught the SAT for a while, I could become an English tutor there and earn even more (I would have been making $25 an hour already as a SAT tutor, which is not bad!) without being certified or even having a degree. I say "would have" because I transferred colleges and moved away before even starting the job. Still, it was definitely nice to know I got hired.
And there -are- certain tutoring companies that only hire tutors from top colleges and charge around $150 an hour. Signet Education, Ivy Tutors Network, etc.
But again, it's not really that I hope to work for a tutoring company. I'm not opposed to it, but what I meant in my OP was that I want to be a private tutor and set my own rates, and I do believe that going to an elite university helps with that. Fair or not, many parents would feel more comfortable handing over a lot of money to a Harvard-educated tutor than one from UC Riverside.
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Again, you didn't state what location you wanted. The environment is very variable in the US and the requirements/working conditions in one region may not apply to other regions.
I'm open to all regions really, as long as the school I worked at was the right fit.
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If you are interested in the elite privates like Dalton, Bramford Nightingale, Horace Mann, that's a different matter and again, a degree from one of the name brand schools does not necessarily open doors there.
Yeah, I know it doesn't necessarily do that, but surely it wouldn't hurt?
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DM me if you wish to apply to Dalton for next year. Dalton also hires people without degrees to teach vocational type of subjects. For example, my friend retired there after teaching set decoration for almost 30 years. They're fully staffed right now.
Thanks! I'm definitely interested in teaching at Dalton. I know they have a Lower School Associate Teacher program, but it doesn't look like they have one for secondary school. I'll DM you about it.
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If you are interested in tutoring for the GRE, LSAT, a couple of young guys who have a tutoring business for the past couple of years on Madison Ave. just reached out to me. They only offer services for grad school exams but they pay 120-200 per session. Let me know and I'll forward the information to you.
You mean for me to be a tutor there? That'd be awesome. See, I'd have no problem working for a tutoring company if I got paid that handsomely. Not sure I'm qualified though. I scored in the 98th percentile on a mock LSAT but haven't taken the real thing. I could tutor for the English parts of the GRE but the math would be a total no-go for me, haha.
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You already answered your own question about whether private schools are scarce. No, they are not. Yes, it's hard to get into the ones that you mentioned but you didn't state those schools were your goal schools. There are thousands of private schools of different types, affiliations, grade levels across the country.
Okay, just to clarify: elite privates like Dalton, Spence, Exeter, Choate, etc are definitely my ideal, but the prestige of the school isn't the most important. I just want to teach at a school that has a tight-knit, positive community, progressive and creative curriculum (not teaching to standardized tests), small class sizes, and a beautiful environment. Whether this is at an Ivy feeder boarding school or a tiny, unknown, but thriving private school in the woods of Santa Cruz doesn't make a significant difference.
If you plan to open your own business, get a business degree.....it will take you much further financially.
If you just want a credential, go anywhere.....those from the cheapest schools got the same salary I did from a more expensive school.
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, another point of clarification I should add:
If I go for my credential, I will only be applying to programs where I can get both my Master's + Credential in one-year. There are actually a lot of good programs out there like that, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard...
But there are a few (Johns Hopkins, UPenn, etc) that have great M.Ed programs but no actual credential, so they seem less practical and less cost-efficient, but I'm still torn about completely crossing them off my list.
I'm also only applying to schools where there is at least a decent chance of me getting a scholarship. There is at least one great school (Master's + Credential) that I am fairly certain I'll get into and whose tuition is also pretty cheap, so if I don't get the scholarships at any of the more expensive ones, I still have an inexpensive option.
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Not sure I'm qualified though. I scored in the 98th percentile on a mock LSAT but haven't taken the real thing. I could tutor for the English parts of the GRE but the math would be a total no-go for me, haha. 
