[dp1234]

That is one thing I never understood. There are less requirements to teach at the college level than to teach high school. Most people don't realize that most college teachers have never actually had any education courses, they just happen to have attained advanced degrees.

[maxharris]

I think that the requirements should be lowered for K-12 teachers.

The reason things got so bad is that there are a lot of education majors that go into K-12 education because it's easy. These are people that couldn't pass introductory science courses, let alone teach them to undergraduates. And there are lots of them, so they try to differentiate between themselves by getting masters degrees in easy (as opposed to chemistry or physics) fields such as education. Over time, this must have ossified to the point we are today, which is that this puffed-up "educational" arms race between teachers has translated into an institutional requirement.

One of the reasons I didn't respect many of my grade school teachers is that they didn't actually know anything, and I could tell.

[juiceandjuice]

I think one thing that would help is that teachers should actually have a real degree with a minor in education, instead of the other way around, and that the pay would incentivize away from teachers just picking communications and getting away with that.

Imagine if your history teachers had a history degree, your english teachers had an english degree, your kindergarden teachers had a sociology degree or (a more rigorous) early childhood development degree, and that the pay was competitive, if not more than what they would expect otherwise (for english and history majors, this wouldn't be so hard) Right now, teachers have every incentive to get in the 5 year Masters program in education and not learn anything about what they are teaching, but learn how to teach.

[maxharris]

I agree with the end you have in mind, but I don't think that legal requirements should (or could) be used to make it happen. What we're talking about is inevitable if we separate the government from education completely.

In a free education market, parents would be free to ask a private school's administration, "What does your math teacher know about math, and what credentials does he have to prove it?"