Re: Moving to Texas? Texas Teachers Alt. Certification?

Posted by Teach on 4/01/08

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I am doing Tx Teachers in Houston. They are easy to fulfill
with bare minumum interference. Region 4 is terrible, I have
never heard a good thing about them. Every teacher from their
program takes 2 or more years to finish their requirements.
They are very thorough and require a lot of work/projects to
fulfill your internship. They sound very informative but at the
cost of several obstacles, projects, and too much time. I
recommend ACT Houston, they sound like a balance between Tx
Teachers and Region 4. They give you materials and cover it
with you. Texas teachers charges too much for barely there
instuction. I only did it because I could complete it in a
week as opposed to training for several weeks after work in a
bad neighborhood. Texas teachers provides zero materials and
you "learn" in an auditorium with 300-400 other students.
Several skip class or sleep during the hours long lectures.
Teaching is really on the job training anyway but knowing the
jargon and more interactive training would have been
appreciated.

Oh yeah, the pay is ok, not sure how it compares to other
states. Median starting pay seems to be about 40k with zero
experience working 195 days a year, approx 15 of those in
teacher training. Finding a job in desirable/easier/more
knowledgeable students is difficult. I hear Spring Branch
works their teachers like dogs but they can afford to be choosy
about their hires because it is a well-funded ISD with medium-
class to well off income families.

I hope all this helped! I am a 1st year teacher and love it!
It has far exceeded any of my expectations and I am so happy to
make the switch from corporate to teaching. I do have 8 preps
and teach 11 classes so it is constant work but that is very
rare, another friend has 1 class prep(/teaches one course) and
does it 4 times a day so the work varies per school district.
Hope this "book" helps. Good luck!

On 1/03/08, Jenny wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I can't answer your Alternative Certification question, but I
> do want to make you aware that Texas is not a Praxis state
> but rather has its own teaching exams called TExES:
> http://www.texes.ets.org/texes/

Posts on this thread, including this one

• Moving to Texas? Texas Teachers Alt. Certification?, 10/22/07, by Kristina.
• Re: Moving to Texas? Texas Teachers Alt. Certification?, 10/24/07, by Mark.
• Re: Moving to Texas? Texas Teachers Alt. Certification?, 1/03/08, by Jenny.
• Re: Moving to Texas? Texas Teachers Alt. Certification?, 4/01/08, by Teach.