The International Schools Review Forum

Hi,
My wife is currently enrolled in the teacher preparation certificate program with Teach-Now.

Q1 - The admin wanted her to sit the Praxis tests and get an FBI fingerprint check, but because she is not an American citizen (no SSN) and has no desire to ever get registered to teach in the States, she doesn't feel that it's necessary to do so. At first the admin said it was mandatory, then they capitulated when she explained the reasons why, but now a few of the instructors are saying that she should. I completed the teacher prep course with TCNJ and for the same reasons I wasn't required to sit for any Praxis tests.
Does anyone have any experience with this?

Q2 - I'm wondering if anyone that has completed the program has put their certificate through the authentication process required for a Chinese Z visa. The cert would need to be certified by the Secretary of State's office then authenticated by US Department of State and then go to the Chinese embassy for authentication. I have had my TCNJ cert authenticated twice without any problems, but I'm wondering if the Teach-Now cert would hold up. Thoughts?

Thanks :)

From my limited (2nd hand) understanding, the certification from Teach Now actually comes from being certified in the "state" of Washington DC (or Arizona I believe). That makes sense since in the US, individual states are pretty much the only entities that actually authorize teacher certification. So, the Praxis appears to actually be DC's requirement, not necessarily Teach Now's.

Your wife may not ever plan on teaching in the US but without a state's certification, I'm not sure where her status as a "certified teacher" is going to come from. If you were able to achieve this without taking the Praxis then maybe your wife can as well (although does NJ require the Praxis for their certification?).

In any case, I am far from an expert about these things. Maybe one will come along and post on your wife's situation.

I do know of people who went through Teach Now and are now teaching in China, but don't really know the nitty gritty details.

@McTeacher

The purpose of the Teach-Now program is to lead towards a Washington D.C teaching license. The certificate that Teach-Now issues only has value towards meeting the academic requirements for the D.C teaching license. If your wife does not sit the Praxis exams and gets an FBI background check she will not be a licensed teacher. The Teach-Now program is not worth the money it costs if you don't get the teaching license. Non-Americans should have no problem getting the FBI background check, a SSN is not required.

Likewise, you might want to check that you have a valid teaching license as well, the TCNJ certificate may just be a certificate issued by the university and not a teaching license issued by a State. Tier 3 schools in China may accept it as certification but they would also accept no teaching license, you may run into issues if you ever want to move on to an international school that requires licensed teachers.

Q2. China requires your university degree and criminal background check to be authenticated. To get the Z-visa you also need either 2 years of work experience or an authenticated teaching certificate. Cheap online TEFL certificates count for this so the Teach-Now certificate would work. If your wife has at least two years of experience, the certificate isn't needed for visa purposes.

Your spouses feelings arent relevant. The FBI CRB is required by the regulating authority the District of Columbia. Having an SS# is not a requirement for a FBI CRB, it is based on a fingerprint search of the NCIC and InterPol databases, either her prints will match a record or they wont.

NJ didnt require assessments until relatively recently, so you may have not had to do them. As @WinterFerret discussed do you have a state credential (Standard or CEAS) from NJ that you earned from TCNJ or do you just have the TCNJ Uni certificate? The credential from the NJ DOE is valuable its a professional credential that admits entry to practice in the profession. the Certificate from TCNJ just states you met their requirements at some point, and is worth about what the paper and toner its printed with. Now NJ requires PRAXIS assessments.

You misunderstand the current visa requirements. You cant have a state credential authenticated (apostiled) by the US SOS, it can only be apostiled/authenticate by the State SOS. The US SOS can only apostile/authenticate federal documents. However both the state DOE credential and the Uni TCNJ certificate can be notarized and authenticated/apostiled by the NJ SOS. A professional educator credential isnt required for a Z visa too China. Only your degree and CRb is required to be apostiled/authenticated. For visa purposes you dont need a credential at all.

The Teach Now certificate would be authenticated without any problem. The Chinese ministry of labor and immigration will accept the NJ DOE credential, they may not accept the Teach Now Certificate. The Teach Now certificate is just a piece of paper. Teach Now isnt regionally accredited, they are just an organization with a printer and paper.

Hi guys,
Thanks for your input.

@WinterFerret
Being a licensed teacher is not a requirement for obtaining a teaching position with many top ISs. I have friends that are working in top tier schools in Caracas, Manila, Beijing, Shanghai, and Taipei that are not licensed teachers, but have completed accredited teacher preparation courses. I, myself, have just accepted a position at a top tier school and I am not, nor have I ever been, a licensed teacher. The only time I have come across the need to be licensed is when the IS is an offshore school tied to their home country. For example, the Canadian International School of Phnom Penh requires their teachers to have or obtain a teaching certificate from the Canadian province of Alberta because the school is connected to the Education Ministry of Alberta.
Thank you for your time :)

@psyguy
I've been reading your posts for the last few years and I know that you have a lot of good information to share... I just wish you wouldn't consistently come across as such a condescending prck. I encourage you to reread your posts and ask yourself "Do I sound like a prck again?" and edit your thoughts (because 9/10 times you do) before you hit the Submit button.

I never said that one has to have an SS# to get a fingerprint check.. duh. That was not what my question was about.
As for TCNJ, after completing their teacher preparation course, I was issued a Certificate of Qualification (CQ), which, and I quote from the letter from the State of New Jersey, Department of Education letter I have in front of me, XXXX is not a citizen of the the United States who does not hold a US Social Security Number. As such, he is not able to apply for certification by regulations governing certification in New Jersey. Instead he was issued a Certificate of Qualification from this office". "Federal and State Policies for any state-issued certificate in professional education require that the candidate holds and submits a valid U.S. Social Security Number". Issuance of the CQ 'serves as validation that XXXXX completed a New Jersey Department of Education-approved program in Elementary Education'.
And, as I said above, I have recently obtained a position at my third international school with only the CQ.

I didn't, as you say, misunderstand the current requirements for a Z visa. When was the last time you applied for one? I have just gone through the process for a second time and things have changed in the last year.
As for authentication (I received this from the visa bureau here in Jiangsu province):
Step 1 - All non-government issued documents must be notarized by a local notary public
Step 2 - All documents must be certified by the Secretary of State’s office in the state where the document was issued.
Step 3 - Documents issued in certain states must be authenticated by the US Department of State after certification by local secretary of state’s office. These states include Washington DC, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Did you happen to recognize the words 'Washington DC"? Ya, that's right, that's where Teach-Now issues its documents from. I know that professional educator credential isn't required, but it gets you points under the new Chinese visa system. The more points the better.
You wrote "You cant have a state credential authenticated (apostiled) by the US SOS". Firstly, I'm not sure what US SOS is. Did you mean US DOS? Again, please proofread and edit. Please understand that Authentication Certificates and Apostilles are not the same. "Authentication Certificates are issued for documents which are destined for use in countries that are not parties to the Hague Apostille Convention" ie. China. If you follow the link below, you will see that there are general documents, such as diplomas, that can be authenticated by the US DOS. Have a look:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel ... tions.html

Anyone who has read a few of your posts knows your opinions about Teach-Now (even though you've never completed it), but are you sure you know what you are talking about when you say that they are not accredited?
As for Teach-Now accreditation:
The TEACH-NOW Graduate School of Education has been nationally accredited by the Distance Education Accreditation Commission and the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation. The Educatore School of Education’s degree programs have been approved by Washington, DC’s Office of State Superintendent of Education and the Arizona State Department of Education.

I am so thankful for being a part of the ISR community. I just wish people contributing here would stick to writing about things they know as factual.

Leadership can be distracted sometimes, its not all about you, and they generally dont hold your hand and stroke your ego. They offered you a contract, thats your welcome aboard.
The position may have been relisted, but it could have also been an opening for another vacancy.
Most ISs dont do the via process for you, if you had an IS that did you were very fortunate, IE isnt like some fortune 100 company with an OSH specialist and you do is give them your passport and then a week or so later its all done and ready to go. Typically the IS will arrange an invitation letter and securing a work permit so that you can secure a visa, but thats typically the extent of their involvement. In some instances you can enter on a tourist visa and have it converted and for a last minute appointee an IS may use that route, but its usually not possible.

There is no blacklist from the ISs position they have probably punished you enough, as ISS wont reactivate your profile, and the IS isnt likely to release you which cost you $200. Aside from that there is little they can do. They cant bad mouth you to anyone without knowing who to bad mouth you too. They cant call all 10K+ HOSs.

HR may not get their instructions from the HOS it depends on the IS some ISs have a HOS who to you looks like they are in charge but the IS may have a "director" who is above the HOS and business units like HR, accounting/finance, etc. may report to the director.

From my POV the position was re-posted and then after that you got the visa info, it seems above board to me, why send you the visa application info if they had replaced you.

Informing ISS you wanted to keep looking and had a bad feeling over what were essentially minor inconveniences was probably the end for you. From their perspective you have a contract, and the contract spells out specifically what the IS and you are obligated to do, so unless there is a provision of the contract that states the IS will make all visa arrangements then from their POV you broke contract. At the worst the IS is unresponsive to your inquiries but thats it, and most leadership do HR poorly, and your ISs actual HR may not be very organized. I doubt there is anything you can do exept go back to the IS and attempt to explain your feelings and ask to continue with the contract. Otherwise I disagree with @shopaholic, the HOS/recruiter probably thinks your a diva and high maintenance, if your going to need constant attention they may think youre not worth bringing on, and they can back out of the contract because you broke contract. You are probably better off, because if you did go back youd be looking for anything wrong to validate your feelings. Better to move on.

@psyguy - I see you're not taking my advice to check your posts before hitting the submit button. If you did, you would see that you replied to the wrong thread with your post. Sigh

@McTeacher

There have been a lot of certification questions asked recently.