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Dont get your masters, just finish whatever you need to get your teaching degree and do your student teaching, it will be faster and cheaper.
In the past getting into teaching would have been great. Now, not so much. In my area which is pretty well known for paying teachers good, even kindergarden teachers get paid same as high school teachers, lots of teachers making over 100k, etc.
The state of Illinois owes the schools so many millions of dollars they cant pay teachers and are laying teachers off, hundreds of teachers. I dont really feel bad for them b/c if their unions were reasonable it probably wouldn't have come to this but still, similar things are happennning all over the country. Its not worth the money, time and effort and hardship on your family for an industry thats not really currently in demand, laying off lots of workers and unless your in specific regions doesnt pay all that great.
Why not start looking into private schools, catholic schools, etc. They often just require a BA, no teacher certification.
Why not start looking into private schools, catholic schools, etc. They often just require a BA, no teacher certification.
Pay at Catholic schools is atrocious. My DIL with the Masters Degree is athletics director of her elementary school. She is 40 years old, been teaching 15 years, 5 years at that school, salary $32,000/year. No 100K here. And with her tenure and education, any public system would be required to hire her at $60/yr. As I said, they've been hiring the newbies.
DIL's sister is an elementary school teacher in public school system, earns $44,000 year (no Masters Degree). Sister's hubby is a school principal, etc. in the same system, salary is $120,000/yr.
In Wisconsin public elementary school teachers are not as highly paid as high school teachers. I am surprised IL is paying elementary school teachers 100K. Does that include fringe?
I have a friend also with Masters Degree who teaches 7th grade. 17 years tenure, salary $56,000 plus fringe of $36,000.
All this stuff is public record in WI.
Last edited by Ariadne22; 10-10-2010 at 10:57 AM..
Just a recommendation: Go sit in a classroom and work with kids before making the move. Teaching isn't as easy as it looks and often involves a lot of work outside of the classroom, especially in elementary schools. Are you looking to teach elementary school? This seems to be the hardest to find jobs in. The easiest are teaching Math or Science in middle school/high school.
I'm seriously considering becoming a teacher. I already have my BS, however, not in education. I need to get my Masters of Teaching. I will be 48 years old when I graduate. This will be a bit of a financial hardship for my family and I do not want to go through getting my Masters, only to find out I can not get a job. MY QUESTION IS: Do schools prefer to hire young people out of college or a mature, responsible 48 year old with life experience?
I appreciate your honesty, thoughts and opinions.
I have three friends who changed careers into teaching when they were into their 40's. None had any problem finding a job within a reasonable amount of time. One got one right away, one got one after subbing for a year or so, and one is still looking but right now in a long term sub role for a teacher who is on an extended medical leave.
I'm seriously considering becoming a teacher. I already have my BS, however, not in education. I need to get my Masters of Teaching. I will be 48 years old when I graduate. This will be a bit of a financial hardship for my family and I do not want to go through getting my Masters, only to find out I can not get a job. MY QUESTION IS: Do schools prefer to hire young people out of college or a mature, responsible 48 year old with life experience?
I appreciate your honesty, thoughts and opinions.
A school which rejects you is not somewhere I'll send my kids to.
I'd prefer you teaching rather than a clueless 25 year old.
I believe your age maturity is well suited for the teaching job.
I just left my Catholic school job of 20 yrs making 45k with a Masters and I am certified. There were some posts on here that said you do not need to be certified in the private/parochial schools, and that is NOT true (at least here on LI). My advice is to stay far away from the catholic schools. Not only is the pay EXTREMELY low, but the diocese considered my salary too expensive to pay. I am 46 years old and I do believe there is a lot of age discrimination out there and I do not understand that. The public school system could hire me at their step one salary and get years worth of experience. I know the job market is tight, but your best bet would be to start subbing (although most districts now have more subs than they need).
On a more personal note, my daughter attends a Catholic HS on LI, and it was very important to me that the school was not filled with all young teachers. I feel more comfortable with a mix, there is something to be said about maturity. Her last school was filled with too many young teachers and it was a disaster.
Good luck in your search. I am out there with you!
In my area, experienced teachers with masters degrees are NOT hired because they are too expensive. My daughter-in-law with a masters degress applied for a department head position (athletics) in a suburban school and they hired instead a newbie with a couple years experience and no masters degree for budget reasons she was told.
I have been told to be working on the masters, but don't actuality finish it until after you are hired. For the same reason that you mentioned: They will hire the cheaper teacher who does not have the masters and they give you a set number of years to get one.
I am a 25 year old new full time special ed. teacher (subbed for 2 years). I have to say, I get treated poorly being young. People already assume I am a bad teacher since this is my first full time teaching job and that I act like I am my students' friend because I look like a high school student. I am the youngest person at my high school and get treated like a 5 year old here.
If I HAD to say who has the upper hand with getting a teaching job, it would probably be those with the actual teaching experience more so than any particularly age like any other job.
In NYC there is a program where older adults with life experience can get jobs as teachers and the school system pays for their masters degree. I think the teacher has to pledge a certain amount of years of service in a contract. However, with the bad economy I don't know if they are even doing this lately. As for your age, yeah, it may be an obstacle. Also, there are plenty of people who are already teachers and cannot find a job. If I were you I would try and talk to teachers, principals, etc., in the area you would be looking for work and get their advice.
I Interviewed twice in the last 5 years for that program (NYC Teaching Fellows). It is as hard to get into as Harvard (about 1 in 8 get in!). It still exists but due to budgets in the last two years it is mostly limited to Special Ed and Science (not even Math, which in most places there is more demand for than Science).
I did get into a somewhat similar program in Connecticut that is a little easier to get into (just a little, like maybe 1 out of 3 applicants). I went for Middle School Math. For all secondary math and science (middle and high school) almost everybody got jobs coming right out of the program until "my" year (summer of 2009). Now about 1 out of 4 get a job right away. And after 2 years, only 4 out of my group of 13 got middle school math jobs. There were many people over 40 in the program (I was 41, and the median age for the entire group of 125 students was 42), in fact I had cohorts as young as 25 and as old as 65. Those who did get jobs were from all the age ranges so there wasn't much discrimination, in fact some school districts liked the 40 and over candidates who have a lot of "life" experience.
However, I did in the middle of last year get a part-time Math "resource room" position at an inner-city high school (because it was for a special Federal program and not the school district itself and involved "remedial" HS math you could get it with a Middle School license if you had a strong math background), it pays about what a beginning teacher would get (if it were 5 days) minus the benefits. I also sub the rest of the week in 3 districts when available (including one 45 minutes away). Since it was a "temporary" position, I was very surprised last month to be asked back for the whole school year (I'm hoping it will help me get my first "regular" teaching job next fall).
So it's very tough out there but if you give it time and depending on your discipline (i.e. elementary education has been a tough job market to crack (with some age discrimination for newbies to boot) even in "good" times and is virtually a complete "lottery" now), you could be OK, especially if things start to improve.
Lots of luck to you! I've posted a lot on this subject in the past if you search C-D Forums, though not in awhile......
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