U.S. News Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Teacher [Paperback]

Ben Wildavsky (Author), Staff of U.S. News (Author)

Book Description

Series: U.S. News Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Teacher | Publication Date: August 1, 2004

Upcoming retirements combined with growing enrollments mean 2 million new teachers will be needed in the coming decade. Coupled with the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act and high turnover, especially in troubled high-poverty schools, the teaching profession faces daunting challenges.

The U.S. News Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Teacher, from the education experts at U.S. News & World Report, offers a complete overview of the turmoil in the profession and the spread of reforms designed to attract the best and brightest to teaching-and to encourage them stay. The guide also provides detailed information about how to choose the right school of education, the many new alternative routes into the classroom, and how to pay for it all.

This informative and helpful guide features:
• An overview of what’s wrong with teaching-and how it’s being fixed
• How to pick an education program
• Where to find the money to pay for your degree
• Profiles by U.S. News reporters of teachers at different kinds of schools (inner city, suburban, rural, public, private) highlighting how they became teachers and what their job is really like on a day-to-day basis
• A state-by-state and city-by-city overview of teacher salaries
• A detailed directory of graduate schools of education

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An essential resource for anyone who wants to teach, but doesn't know quite where to begin." -- Kathleen Porter-Magee, The Education Gadfly

"[...] Lays out the nuts and bolts for college graduates who think they want to become teachers." -- Education Week, September 22, 2004

About the Author

Ben Wildavsky, the book's lead author, is a long-time education journalist and a deputy editor at U.S.News & World Report, where he helps plan and edit coverage of education and culture for the magazine's weekly Science & Society section. He is also a deputy editor of "America's Best Colleges" and "American's Best Graduate Schools." Previously, he covered economic policy for National Journal, wrote on higher education for the San Francisco Chronicle, and was executive editor of The Public Interest. He has also written for The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor, and was a writer and editor for "Teaching at Risk: A Call To Action," a 2004 report by the nonprofit Teaching Commission.

Founded in 1933, Washington, D.C.-based U.S.News & World Report delivers a unique brand of weekly magazine journalism to its 12.2 million readers. In 1983, U.S. News began its exclusive annual rankings of American colleges and universities. The U.S. News education franchise is second to none, with its annual college and graduate school rankings among the most eagerly anticipated magazine issues in the country.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc. (August 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402202911
• ISBN-13: 978-1402202919
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,080,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Clearly not "The Ultimate Guide", March 7, 2006

By 

Lisa Green (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: U.S. News Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Teacher (Paperback)

I don't see how anybody could call this book the Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Teacher. The subject matter is quite narrow. It really doesn't say much about earning a teaching credential. This book is for people wanting to get a Masters Degree in teaching. If you only want a teaching credential, and don't want to spend the extra time and money right away getting a Master's degree, this book is almost useless. Most of the book is a nationwide directory of colleges where you can earn a Master's Degree in Education. Also, this book covers the whole country, so it doesn't say much about how to become a teacher in any particular state. Every state has a different system. If you want to earn a Master's Degree in teaching, this book will probably be helpful to you, but it's definitely not the Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Teacher.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Geared toward grad students, March 5, 2006

By 

CRK "just me" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: U.S. News Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Teacher (Paperback)

Being interested in becoming a teacher, I ordered this book, but I suppose I didn't look too carefully (or should have looked more carefully), as this book is geared more toward college graduates who are looking to go to graduate school for an education degree. There's some interesting info for about 50 or so pages at the beginning, to give a background on being a teacher, and some indexes of payscales per state, but the majority of the book lists graduate schools of education per state.