D is a rising senior looking at special ed teaching. We are looking at PA colleges as well as NY (our home state) colleges for elementary ed programs. I am wondering whether, even with the reciprocity between PA and NY if a PA college education degree will hurt her when looking at teaching positions in NY and if that plays a factor. Any thoughts?
@artie1 ahhh I wish I saw this sooner. I did that exact thing - went to Penn for my masters (HIGHLY recommend the program) but the plan was always to teach in NY.
NY has an annoying and rigorous process for teacher certification, probably the worst out of almost all the states. In addition to the masters, you will need to complete 3 or 4 online exams, attend 3 workshops, and take the edTPA.
The online exams - these are pretty easy. You can take them on a computer at thousands of testing centers across the country, so I took them in Philly and it wasn’t a problem. This page will tell you which ones you need to take http://www.nystce.nesinc.com/NY17_whoshouldtest.asp - you’re looking at Initial Certification so the EAS, ALST, and CST.
The workshops - these are only offered in NY and aren’t necessarily scheduled at convenient times so you’ll have to be prepared to find a time to take them. I personally took them after I graduated, during the summer when I was looking for jobs. Each workshop is only 2-6 hours total, not a big commitment. It’s stuff like child abuse reporting and school bullying/violence.
edTPA - this is the hardest part. edTPA is grueling. You have to film yourself teaching 3 days and then write up about 15-25 pages. It’s tough because at a NY school you would be surrounded by other people doing it, and the faculty at the masters program will help you and guide you through it. Since it’s not required in PA, you’re really on your own, so you need to make sure you’re aware of the deadlines and what’s required. You also need to take the time on your own to film yourself student teaching. I rented a video camera and tripod from the college and arranged it all myself.
Because the requirements like the workshops are difficult to do in PA during the teaching year, I couldn’t finalize my certification until the summer after graduation, while I was job hunting. It wasn’t the worst thing. Principals understand if you’re in the process and your certification hasn’t been finalized, as long as you’re in the process of doing it and will be finished before the school year starts.You’re still allowed to job hunt and be in the DOE system as a new teacher, just make sure you’re working towards all the requirements and will get them done before Sept.
The important thing is realizing that you’re on your own and need to take the initiative to fulfill all the requirements for NY certification. I didn’t even get certified in PA because it wouldn’t have made a difference; you still need to do all of the above things, so I just applied straight for NY cert. I would imagine at a NY school, there is someone walking you through the certification process, reminding you of deadlines, helping you schedule workshops, etc. But in PA, you’re pretty much on your own.
SO sorry for all that info, but I hope it helps!! For what it’s worth, no one doing the hiring cared at all that I didn’t go to a NY school. They only care that you’ll have a certification once the school year starts. If you have any questions, I did this all last summer so I can answer anything.
Thanks for the detailed response! We did end up checking with my wife’s friend who is the assistant to a school principal and she said the same-they hired a teacher recently who went to school in Maryland.
She also said that they like to hire teachers with Masters because then the district doesn’t have to pay for their Masters courses. I had always heard that districts liked hiring teachers with Bachelors because they could pay them less but I’m guessing with tight budgets they don’t feel they need to pay Masters degree holders more nowadays.
@artie1 -
I don’t believe that school districts pay for the masters, but a teacher does get higher pay if they have one. However, this could vary depending on the school district and the contract it has with its teacher’s union.
My D attended a SUNY school. She entered as an education major and in her first semester, she applied to and was accepted into the 5 year combined undergrad-master’s program. This allowed her to take some of her graduate level courses in her senior year at undergraduate tuition, which is a cost savings, even at in state tuition.
The EdTPA is tough. Had my D done only an undergraduate degree, she would have been in the last class before EdTPA. Since she did the 5 year, she had to do EdTPA. My D was student teaching at the time in both gifted and special ed classrooms. She had to get releases from the parents of the kids in order to film them. The classroom teachers filmed for her. Then a friend helped her edit it because D’s computer tech skills are not strong. It took her forever. In addition to the filming, you have to answer questions about it and write up everything you did and correlate what you did with the curriculum requirements and state how your lesson met the objectives, what you believe succeeded and what you would do differently. When the results came in, D was away and did not have computer access. She asked me to check for her and I asked one of her brothers to help me. We logged on and saw her score. My son said: “Mom, after all her hard work, how are we going to tell her that she got a 65!?” Fortunately, we found a concordance table and realized that 65 actually equated to a very good score! Many of her friends did not pass. What was interesting, at least in her program, was that the students who graduated with honors all passed and most of the rest didn’t. The upshot is that after teaching for one year, my D decided that she hates the bureaucracy of it and may never teach again.
In NY, you do need to get your masters within 3 years in order to keep your certification. And districts probably won’t pay for it, so you might as well just do it now. I would NOT have wanted to be getting my masters while teaching full time. Way too stressful. I’ve heard it both ways - some say principals prefer people without a masters because they’re cheaper, but it’s only a few thousand dollars, which is really nothing in the scheme of the school budget.* Others say they prefer you to have a masters because then they don’t need to worry about you completing it in the next three years, which is probably more accurate. I don’t know why they’d hire someone with a bachelors when everyone else already has their masters.
*I’ve spent this summer working on getting my 30 extra college credits, which will give me a $6k salary bump. At first I was nervous that the principal was going to feel upset that I just made myself more expensive behind his back, but others assured me that 6k is virtually unnoticeable in the school budget.
EdTPA really is tough. I’ve always been a great test taker and essay writer, and I passed, but not by as large of a margin as I would have expected. Being a hardworking, competent will definitely not get you an automatic pass on it.