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Originally posted by Rio_Kohitsuji
To add on this....start teaching w/o a Master's in the beginning!! Many school districts will PAY for your Master degree!
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Don't count on this, though... it *really* varies from district to district! My district would not pay for any of my grad work, though our new contract will pay for some Master's courses for teachers in their first five years of teaching. Like, 3 credits or $X00 per year. Depending on where you go, $X00 may be what it costs for *one* credit. And in some places, you cannot teach without a certificate unless you already *have* a Master's degree in your field, and are just adding on three education classes or something.
We do get nice bonuses in pay for the extra grad credits-- you get "paid" for the coursework once you hit a 15-credit increment (BA, BA+15, BA+30, MA, MA+15, MA+30, MA+45) by an increase in your salary.
Best advice-- start with the website of the State Board of Education where you would like to teach. Then contact them or your Regional Office of Education (ROE may be a county office or something like that, or just a branch of the state office) to get info on what kinds of coursework and tests you need for certification at a post-bachelor's level.
[I'd never HEARD of PRAXIS until a few weeks ago reading about it on GreekChat.
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Another thing to keep in mind is that in some states, you'll move from an "Initial" certificate to a "Standard" certificate after your first 2-5 years of teaching. In Illinois, you needed to complete so many units worth of coursework, seminars, conferences, and the like, and working towards a master's degree counted towards that recertification program. So it's one more thing to keep in mind...