Westwood Seeks Minimally Qualified Teachers.

The Christie administration’s public education budget cuts have taken a nasty toll on the state of education in New Jersey.  Almost everybody knows a NJ teacher without a job. 

Interestingly, the Borough of Westwood is advertising a leave replacement (April – November, 2011) opening for a Middle School Science Teacher on its web site. 

The only catch is that you must be only minimally qualified to apply.  The job requires a “Middle School Science” certification.  This level of certification only requires 15 credits of science to attain.  A teacher with this certification can teach public school science up to grade 8. 

The State of New Jersey offers a K-12 science certification which requires 30 credits of science to attain.  A teacher with this certification can teach public school science up to grade 12.  Arguably, high school science is more rigorous and demands the additional training. 

A call to the State of New Jersey Department of Education confirms that either of the two certification levels is sufficient to teach at the middle school level.  Therefore, the requirement to be minimally certified at best to qualify for this job is solely a stipulation imposed by Westwood. 

Why would Westwood want to exclude more highly trained science teachers for this job? 

Are the science supervisors or the administrators in charge too ignorant to know better? 

Who in their right mind would want to work for a school District, or send their kids to a school District, which aspires toward minimal qualifications at best?
 Westwood Jobs.
Web image from: http://www.wwrsd.org/655758422268/site/default.asp

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