> And I question the ‘lack of job market’ when it comes to education. There are lots of teacher jobs available. <
In most places it depends on the field. There is a huge surplus of social studies and physical education teachers. At job fairs many school districts will not even interview those folks.
Ah, but get certified to teach special education, math, or science (but not biology, excess there too) and you’ve got a real shot. Just stay out of urban schools! It’s not worth it.
Side point: I’m a retired teacher. And I firmly believe that education degrees should be abolished. As seen in SeekAndFind‘s chart, those degrees lack rigor. Better yet, they have no rigor at all. Just parrot back whatever the latest teaching fad is.
So if you want to teach, say, chemistry first get a degree in chemistry. Then apprentice under a master chemistry teacher. That’s what I did, by the way.
I too am a retired teacher. I got my certificate in California back when getting a certificate meant one had to graduate college with a ‘real’ degree and then spend a year post-grad to get a teaching certificate.
History, which is what I taught for many years, is not considered important enough to require that a teacher actually know anything about history and in larger schools is given to a sports ball coach to fill out his day.
If one gets qualified to do special ed, that is what you’ll be stuck with. I’ve known some teachers who tried to somehow get their special ed qualification removed from their record.