Credentials Count
Economists Want to Stop Teachers’ Degree Bonuses-Washington Post
“You are just as likely to find a great teacher with 3 years of experience as you are a terrible one with 25 years on the job, and vice versa. Other than the first few years, experience does not matter one iota.”-Chad Alderman at the Quick and the Ed
That’s the latest narrative, isn’t it? Teacher experience matters very little, Master’s degrees are superfluous and expensive, and expensive, lazy, union teachers should be replaced by charter schools and Teach for America instructors.
I have a different point of view on this.
Both as a student and teacher in Los Angeles public schools, I have seen and experienced the wonder of master teachers. As a teacher assistant, my first assignment was in the classroom of a teacher who had entered teaching late in life, a career transition. He was clearly out of his element in a classroom full of wild, rambunctious second graders. They hid in the cabinets, pounced from the tops of closets, sat in trash cans,
