Do You Need an Education Degree to Teach at a Private School?

Outside the schools where a state requires certification, private schools set degree expectations school by school, and the national survey data show what they actually hire rather than a single rule.

In NCES's 2020-21 National Teacher and Principal Survey, 45% of private K-12 teachers held a bachelor's as their highest degree, 41% a master's, 9% higher than a master's, and 5% less than a bachelor's.

Only 5% held less than a bachelor's, which is why a bachelor's degree is the working baseline for private school teaching jobs.

The mix shifts by school type.

Master's degrees were the highest degree for 40.7% of teachers at Catholic schools, 34.1% at other religious schools and 49.8% at nonsectarian schools in the same survey.

NCES's "nonsectarian" category is the closest survey match to independent schools, though it is not the same population as NAIS membership.

At NAIS member schools themselves, 39% of teachers held only a bachelor's in 2022-23, 50% a master's and 10% a doctorate.

What the degree data do not settle is the certification question, which is separate: NAIS says independent schools do not always require state certification of their teachers, and NAIS requires member schools to be accredited by an approved state or regional association.

"Do not always" is not "never" — whether a private school's teachers need a state certificate depends on the state and the school's category, which is why certification has its own body of rules on this site rather than one line here.

Faith-based schools add a credential layer of their own: ACSI, the Association of Christian Schools International, lets a teacher earn a first ACSI teaching certificate with a bachelor's degree in any field — ACSI's credential for Christian schools, not a state license.

For what the job itself involves across independent, Catholic, Christian, Montessori and other private schools, our private school teacher career guide is the umbrella view.

NAIS's own hiring description splits the answer by division: lower-school hiring emphasizes familiarity with child development, while secondary independent schools more often look for candidates with higher education and expertise in specific subjects, such as social studies or biology.

Read that as a division map rather than a universal ranking: the deeper the subject you teach, the more a degree in that subject carries the application, and the younger the students, the more child-development and early-education coursework matters.

The private-school workforce reflects that flexibility.

Before their first year of teaching, 66% of private school teachers had taken a course in lesson planning, versus 78% of public school teachers, in the same 2020-21 survey.

Charter school teachers sat between the two, at 70.7%.

What the public data cannot settle is the exact split between education majors and subject majors among private school teachers.

The published NTPS tables we checked do not break highest degree down by major, so our research found no verified national figure for "private school teachers without an education degree."

Practically, your subject depth is the part you can prove on paper — transcript, portfolio, references from people who have seen you teach the subject — and it is the piece NAIS's description of secondary hiring emphasizes.

An education degree, or its coursework, earns its place in four situations.

• Where certification is required. When the state requires certification at the schools you are targeting, degree choices and certification choices stop being separable — whether certification is required depends on the state and the school's category, so it is the first thing to verify with your state education agency.
• Lower and elementary grades. NAIS says lower-school hiring emphasizes familiarity with child development, which is exactly the ground education and child-development coursework covers.
• Salary-setting conversations. NAIS reports that independent schools typically consider a teacher's education, teaching load, certifications and time at the school when setting salary, so formal education is one of the levers schools say they weigh.
• Moving between sectors. Public school teachers held a master's as their highest degree 51% of the time in 2020-21, against 41% in private schools, so education coursework keeps a bridge open if a district job is ever part of your path.

Advanced study is also rising in the sector itself: the share of private school teachers whose highest degree is a master's rose from 29.8% in 1987-88 to 40.7% in 2020-21, per NCES's Digest of Education Statistics.

Charter schools are public schools, so the degree backdrop looks more like the district one than the private one.

In 2020-21, 47.6% of charter school teachers held a bachelor's as their highest degree and 41.3% a master's, against 37.5% and 51.9% among traditional public school teachers.

At the low end, 1.5% of charter school teachers had less than a bachelor's, versus 0.8% of traditional public school teachers.

Highest degree held (2020-21 NTPS)	Less than bachelor's	Bachelor's	Master's	Higher than master's
Private K-12 teachers	5%	45%	41%	9%
Traditional public school teachers	0.8%	37.5%	51.9%	9.8%
Public charter school teachers	1.5%	47.6%	41.3%	9.6%

Certification is where charters differ from private schools: each state's charter law sets its own teacher rules.

Federal special-education law follows the same design — IDEA requires a charter school's special education teachers to meet whatever certification or licensing requirements the state's charter school law sets, if any.

The workforce numbers show charters sitting between the sectors: 75.3% of public charter school teachers held a regular state teaching certificate in 2020-21, and 11.5% held no certification, against 90.9% and 1.3% among traditional public school teachers.

For the job itself — employers, networks and certification state by state — see our charter school teacher career guide.

It happens: 5% of private K-12 teachers held less than a bachelor's as their highest degree in 2020-21.

The survey breakdown shows where: 8.9% of teachers at other religious schools had less than a bachelor's, against 1.8% at Catholic schools and 3.1% at nonsectarian schools.

So the bachelor's baseline is strong but not absolute: in this survey the share is highest at other religious schools and lowest at Catholic schools.

Early education is the one place with a concrete lower threshold in the data we verified: ACSI's early-education certification, covering birth through pre-K, requires at least an associate degree for EE teachers, and the credential costs $100 per area applied for.

Those are ACSI's own requirements for its credential at Christian schools — not a general license to teach without a degree.

Beyond that, whether a school will hire a strong candidate without a bachelor's depends on the school and, where the state requires certification for its teachers, on the state's rules, so the way in is to ask the schools you are targeting what they require for your subject.

Career changers with a subject degree have more than one on-ramp, and the verified examples concentrate in faith-based education.

Christian schools: ACSI's first teaching certificate can be earned with a bachelor's degree in any field, covering Bible knowledge, educational studies and Christian philosophy of education.

Teachers already inside an ACSI member school on a Temporary certificate have a self-paced alternative pathway.

ACSI designs it for about 36 months at 4-5 hours per month, for people with a bachelor's in any field, including career changers, and it leads to a Standard ACSI certificate.

ACSI-accredited schools also accept state certification in place of ACSI's, asking state-licensed teachers to complete ACSI's Christian Philosophy of Education requirement within 3 years plus six Bible CEUs per school year.

Catholic schools: service programs pair teaching with a graduate degree.

Notre Dame's ACE Teaching Fellows places fellows in Catholic schools for two years while they earn a tuition-free M.Ed., with a modest living allowance, community housing arranged by the (arch)diocese, and licensure eligibility on completion.

ACE is one of the 13 member programs the University Consortium for Catholic Education lists, and in 2025-26 the consortium's programs placed 381 teachers in 310 Catholic schools across more than 50 (arch)dioceses.

Independent schools: the subject-expertise emphasis NAIS describes for secondary hiring is an opening for candidates whose degrees are in the subjects they teach, and teaching fellowships at independent schools are the structured learn-while-teaching version of the same entry route.

If your route does need a state certificate, read the program's disclosure before you enroll.

Under federal rules (34 CFR 668.43(a)(5)(v)), a college whose program is designed or advertised to meet licensure requirements must disclose the states where it has determined the program does and does not meet those requirements.

The same rule requires notice to prospective students before enrollment if the program does not meet — or has not determined whether it meets — their state's requirements.

Weigh the decision in this order, from the evidence above.

• Get the bachelor's first, in the field you will teach. It is the sector's baseline in the national data — only 5% of private K-12 teachers held less than a bachelor's in 2020-21 — and subject depth is what NAIS says secondary schools look for.
• Match the division. Lower-school ambitions argue for child-development and education coursework; upper-school ambitions argue for a deeper subject degree.
• Plan around faith-based credentials if that is your segment. For Christian schools, a bachelor's in any field starts ACSI certification, so the degree can follow your subject rather than education.
• If a charter or a district job is in your future, weigh certification early. Charter rules follow each state's charter law, and the licensure-disclosure rule (34 CFR 668.43(a)(5)(v)) is how you check any program before enrolling.
• Treat the master's as a later, sector-normal move. Master's degrees already stand at 41% of private teachers' highest degrees (2020-21) and 50% at NAIS member schools (2022-23), and NAIS lists education among the factors schools consider when setting salary.

None of that adds up to "education degree required."

It adds up to: know your segment, lead with subject depth, and add the credentials your segment actually asks for.

Career information, not legal or hiring advice: degree requirements are set by each school and, where the state requires certification, by the state — confirm the current requirements with your state education agency and with any school you are considering.