Explore the career requirements for high school business teachers. Get the facts about education and licensure requirements, salary, and potential job growth to determine if this is the right career for you. Schools offering .

High school business teachers teach business classes to students in grades 9 through 12. Prospective teachers can enter the field through education or business degree programs. The following chart gives you an overview about becoming a high school business teacher.

Source: *U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

What Degree Do I Need to Be a High School Business Teacher?

The degree you'll need largely depends on the state in which you plan to teach; licensing requirements vary by state. The minimum requirement for certification as a secondary education teacher in most states is a bachelor's degree. You might considering earning a bachelor's degree in business or education.

Degree programs in education often help you meet additional licensing requirements, such as student teaching, during your course of study. If you earn a degree in business instead of education, you may have to complete an alternative licensing program in order to gain student teaching experience. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), some states may expect you to earn a master's degree in education once you've been hired as a teacher (www.bls.gov).

In bachelor's degree programs in education, you can often specialize in business education. Some programs may offer specializations in business-related fields, like economics. You could learn about curriculum development, theories of learning, American education systems, student diversity and emergent literacy. Other areas of study could include diagnostic teaching, reading instruction, student assessment and educational leadership.

Master's degree programs in education could expand on these areas of study with advanced training in pedagogy and research techniques. Master's programs usually take two years to complete and culminate in a thesis - a substantial work of original research.

What Are the Responsibilities?

You could teach high school students about the basic principles of business, including business law, cost-benefit analysis, supply and demand, entrepreneurship and bookkeeping. You might also provide career counseling for students, hold parent-teacher conferences and facilitate educational workshops. In some cases, high school teachers provide athletic coaching or supervise extracurricular activities.

Will I Be Able to Get a Job?

The BLS reported that the number of employed high school teachers would increase by 6% between 2012 and 2022. Job prospects for high school teachers during this time were often best in metropolitan and rural areas. According to the BLS, job growth was also driven by regional population increases in the South as well as the West.

What About the Money?

According to the BLS, the median annual salary for high school teachers was $55, 360 as of May 2013. The top ten percent of teachers made $86, 720 or more during this time, while the lowest ten percent earned $37, 230 or less per year.

Source: learn.org