You're underpaid, abused, overworked, unappreciated and stuck between administrators who only care about funding and parents who want to know why Johnny can't read. And yet you still want to be a school teacher. Well, if that's the case, you might as well know what you're in for and what your options are.



Teaching is one of those rare professions, like being a doctor or a lawyer, where you must get a certification. Not anybody can just walk into a classroom and begin teaching, though there are certainly plenty of people in other professions who are more than capable of teaching students in the subject they specialize in. The truth is, a highly respected and famous scientist can probably teach kids a lot more than somebody straight out of college. But that teacher's certificate is everything in the world when it comes to who can actually teach our kids.

After you get out of college and get certified, which is by no means guaranteed, you then look for your first teaching job. You would think with the shortage of teachers that this would be an easy thing to get. The truth is, it's not. Many schools still hold out for teachers with experience. The problem is, the ones with a lot of experience are hard to come by. And therein lies the rub with the teaching profession that many lawmakers want to change.

Tenure.

Once a teacher has completed two years of teaching in a public school setting they have what is called tenure. In English, what this means is, they can't be fired from their job unless it can be proven that they have done something horrible like abuse a student. Once a teacher gets tenure, especially if they are in a good school system that they would be insane to want to leave, they basically don't. So unlike the corporate world, where people change jobs every few years, teachers put in their 25 years in one school system and then call it a career. So trying to lure one of them away to your school is not easy. The problem is with the pay scale of teachers.

Teachers are one of those strange professions that has a salary guide. Based on how many years you have in THAT school system determines how much you get paid. So a teacher who has put in 15 years and is at level 10, with a masters, would be insane to go to a new school where at best they would maybe start at level 4. The only teachers who leave a school system to go a lower paying job are teachers who work in inner city schools.

And therein lies another rub.

The better school systems won't hire these teachers because they look at them as damaged goods since they've been dealing with students with single parents or no parents and just the worst working conditions. Their feeling is that you don't really teach but only play traffic cop all day.

No, it's not a very nice picture we've painted. But it is the reality of becoming a public school teacher in the United States. So before you actually get your degree and go for your certification, make sure this is what you REALLY want to do.

There is no turning back.