Teachers Hired For Experience Alone : Kansas Makes the Move

This is an on going debate - is it just enough being educated at a university to obtain a degree in education a legitimate reason to assume the graduate can actually teach? As most of us that have college degrees know, even the most intelligent professors have no idea of how to express themselves in ways that transfers what they know to others.

I agree with the teacher union on this point, just having experience in a certain subject might not be enough to transfer knowledge from one person to another, but then the other system is no guarantee either.

Sometimes no matter how much education you have it doesn't help your ability to teach.

Kansas: Licensing More Teachers
Source: Vanessa Martinas, "Licensing More People to Teach," Kansas First News, June 26, 2014.

July 3, 2014

The Kansas State Board of Education has approved plans to allow those with relevant work experience to obtain a teaching license without having a teaching degree, reports Kansas First News.

The bill will allow people with a degree in the subject matter and five years of related experience to fill the spots that not enough teachers are applying for today.
The board's approval came in spite of its opposition by the state's largest teachers union, which has threatened to sue to block the plan.

• Proponents of the plan say that it will increase the number of teachers, especially in the critical areas of math, science and technology, by putting skilled people in the classroom.
• But the Kansas National Education Association opposes the plan because they do not believe that such people will know how to teach.

The new licensing laws go into effect July 1 and will grant one-year licenses to new educators to teach grades eight through 12.