I understood it the first time, thanks.
No. In fact I acknowledged it when I said "Offsetting the higher pay in public schools might not be worth it for the hassle you allude to...". Hassle here equals proving one's qualifications.
What I'm asking for is evidence that public school teachers are in fact more qualified. To elaborate, one person passing a test doesn't mean another person can't. The public employee having to jump through more hoops doesn't automatically make them more knowledgeable on the subject matter. Nor does it mean they possess greater skill. It just means those people took and passed tests that other people either didn't or chose not to.
I'm looking for actual evidence that public schools are getting better teachers. People paying out of pocket for their kids to attend private school, I'm guessing, believe it'll be a superior educational experience to what their child would receive on the taxpayer's dime. Seems counter-intuitive to pay extra for lesser quality.
Let me drive this home with an anecdote. My wife used to teach at UPenn (an Ivy League school) and even won an award in her department. She's not certified to teach public school in this state. She took a job at a private school and has zero interest in going to extra trouble to get a job working with more students and dealing with more disciplinary issues. To her that's worth the decrease in pay. So now you see why I don't just assume that jumping through the extra hoops necessarily means you're a better teacher, or that someone choosing not to means they are less capable or knowledgeable.
One person passing a test might not mean that another person can't, but it certainly also doesn't mean that the other person can.
Here are the pass rates for Florida's certification exams. The math 6-12 pass rate is only 55%. I'm not going to simply assume every private teacher can pass it just because, especially not when 45% of people failed it in 2016. My
guess is that some of the people who failed it probably went on to teach at private schools.
Your wife is very likely not the norm. If you're asking whether or not I think my state certification measures up to her knowledge in whatever field she teaches, I'm going to say no. But if we're comparing the average public/private school teacher, a passing score on an exam is obviously a qualification. Just like a passing score on the PE exam would be a qualification for an engineer even though a lot of engineers never bother to take it. Is it the end of the story in terms of how well somebody teaches? Of course not, but the argument a lot of people who haven't thought about this as much as you have make is that private school is the answer to our overall issues with education. The assumption seems to be, at least according to the post that
@luckyshot responded to that got me to reply to this thread in the first place, that the teachers are better. Where's the proof of that? It certainly isn't based on anything objective like their ability to perform better on average on something like a test.
And it doesn't seem to be based on improved performance among students who would otherwise be attending public school either.
I think your last paragraph touches on something important, which is that some private school teachers do willingly accept less pay because of the benefits that teaching at a private school offers. If I had to state a position, it would be that private schools are largely only able to offer those conditions and benefits because public schools are taking on the bulk of the work load. Give them the same kids that public schools deal with, and I'm skeptical that they'll be able to handle the majority of the student population any better than public schools are. I'd guess they probably do about the same.
But no, I don't have anything that proves conclusively that public school teachers are in fact more qualified; the reason I don't have something like that is because many private schools aren't required to be assessed on their performance to the same degree that public schools are. Frankly, I'd welcome something that can put the issue to rest. But, in the mean time, I'm going to take issue with pushing for vouchers when charters schools and the like aren't held to the same standards that public schools are. Especially when they're being pushed as a solution without any real evidence to back that idea up.
