It says much about our education system that most of us aren’t even shocked by this news.
Even parents who aren’t particularly well-educated could probably do better.
Having an degree in education does not qualify one to teach. My best friend and s-i-l both have teaching degrees from the same college, known for it’s teaching program. I asked both of them the same question: Did your teaching degree teach you to teach?
They both gave me the same answer: No.
You’re expected to learn as you go once you get a job and they both felt that they would be better qualified to teach if they had the more intense courses offered by the non-teaching degree program. But the program doesn’t allow courses to be substituted. A teacher has to take those specified for the teaching degree. Conversely, no other degree program will accept the teaching major courses because they aren’t rigorous enough.
An example is science. Pick any course, like Biology. There’s Bio 101 for non-science majors, Bio 111 for science majors, and there’s Bio 105 for teaching majors. Non teaching majors cannot take Bio 105 and teaching majors cannot take any thing BUT Bio 105, even if it would make them better science teachers.
A degree in teaching is useless for any other career field and in order to become a teacher you have to have a teaching degree. If you want to switch majors, you have to start all over at the beginning. All the time and money spent on a teaching degree is lost nor can credits transfer into the program.
Another thing is, if the professors at a teaching college are not certified to teach in NYS; they cannot teach public high school students, but they CAN teach the teachers who are going to teach those high school students.
Go figure.