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[ememe]

I am a first year English teacher at an independent school.  I have a BA in English Lit, and am in the process of applying for a Master's in Liberal Arts Studies.  Should I also be looking into teacher certification?

I hope to move to the DC area after my second or third year of teaching.  Is this a hard area to break into in terms of independent school openings for English teachers?  How beneficial is certification versus pursuing the MLA degree?  I have no conception of what the job market and educational community are like in the area.

Thank you for any advice.

[msmommy]

I taught public high school, you have to have licensure for a career in public education or 'certification'.  More and more private schools are looking for certified or licensed teachers b/c it looks better in their statistics.

As a parent, I will not put my children in most private schools where we live b/c they do not meet the rigorous standards put in place by the state for public school teachers.  Simply put they do not hire licensed teachers and they do not use curriculum I feel is adequate.  Since I taught in the county we live in, I have first hand knowledge that our teachers here are doing their jobs well.

If you want a Masters, do so in your field.  You will be qualified to teach AP English classes and even community college.  I highly recommend not limiting yourself.  If you have teacher credientials then you can apply for licensure either in DC, MD, or VA (the 3 are so close together you might live in DC and work in MD or live in VA and work in DC or any combination there of).

You would be wise to look at the jobs listed in your field in what you want to do now.   I'm not aware of a huge number of independent schools and if positions become available, they are likely filled rather quickly.  My field is a bit more limited and there have been no openings in a 5 county radius in public high schools in the past 4 years. 

FYI - English as a Second Language is HUGE.  If I were certified in that, I'd have my pick of jobs from elementary through college level.

I live in VA, near DC.

[leopard]

If you want to break into the top tier of DC-area private high schools, you'll be MUCH better off with a degree in English. Schools like Sidwell Friends, Georgetown Day, Holton Arms, the Potomac School, etc, not to mention their religiously affiliated peers, care much more about expertise in a subject. They expect their teachers to conduct classes akin to college classes. I know many people with PhDs in their subject teaching at these and other schools and others who are ABD teaching at them.

Compared to other areas in which I've lived, the DC area has a tremendous number of private schools (independent and religious). The top ones are very rigorous college-prep programs and hire teachers accordingly. Some of the religious ones care about their teachers' religious affiliation and others don't (except for the religious studies classes).

[dr_prephd]

Some facts:

• English in general is an overloaded field.
• Extra certifications always give one more options.

My degree in English never got me a teaching job; however, my certification did. NCLB is really putting the pressure on schools to hire the most highly qualified teachers--and that even trickles into private schools. That said, there are a TON of independent schools in and around D.C., and with the experience you already have, you might fit in just fine.

Or you could end up waiting tables, substitute teaching, and writing freelance. (Not trying to be snarky, but that's what I ended up doing with my English degree!). Once I got my certification, a whole lot more doors opened up for me. I work in a private school in D.C. now. We do require certification.