I've seen many high schools with an introductory business course, but I've yet to see something such as this in middle school. For related arts, they usually look for teachers with a concentration of college experience in that subject. I have an associates in business management from before I began my teacher education program. Given many people find money management and finance to be a very relevant real-world topic, there probably is a curriculum out there created for students of middle school age. What would be the process of getting a middle school to add this in, and could a teacher that teaches a core subject also teach a related arts course for one class period?
The teacher of a departmentalized course like that would need to be Highly Qualified in the NCLB sense, and that probably means obtaining the license/credential in business education that most if not all states offer. An alternative might be to launch and sponsor a Junior Achievement club after school. Failing either of those, the content could be (and I suspect often is) covered within a math or social studies course.
Why would a teacher in middle school business and finance basics need to be highly qualified, but a teacher in a middle school core subject only needs 18 credit hours in that subject plus a praxis test?
In a state that requires 18 credit hours of content plus Praxis to teach a middle-school core subject, the teacher who possesses 18 credit hours plus Praxis fulfills the requirement and therefore is considered Highly Qualified for that middle-school core subject. Note the capitalization, please: "Highly Qualified" is a technical term under the No Child Left Behind Act and its successor(s). If the teacher who does not possess 18 credit hours of content plus Praxis is assigned to teach the same class, under NCLB the school has to send home a letter explaining to parents that their child's teacher is not Highly Qualified; there are, if memory serves, other penalties, and schools purely hate to undergo them. What I don't know for your state, of course, since I don't know what your state is, is whether your state offers (a) a single middle-school-level license such that 18 college credits of whatever kind plus a multiple-subject Praxis plus license will entitle the bearer to teach any middle-school core course, or (b) middle-school licenses in pairs of core subjects such that 18 college credits in English + social science plus a middle-school-English-and-social-science Praxis plus license will entitle the bearer to teach both English and social studies in middle school but not science or PE or business education, or (c) middle-school licenses in each core subject distinctly such that 18 college credits in English plus Praxis in English plus license will entitle the bearer to teach English in middle school, but not social studies or math or art or business education. In my state, as it happens, 18 credit units plus Praxis plus four bucks will get you a latte but no middle-school credential, partly because my state doesn't use Praxis for subject-matter testing and partly because my state doesn't issue distinct middle-school credentials. As I mentioned earlier, most if not all states offer a distinct business education license or credential, and the teacher who wants to teach business education will need to obtain it.
Don't mean to derail the thread, but technically, yes, a business class needs to be taught by a teacher with a business credential...however, in my experience, they will put any content area teacher in a business course, because most administrators don't care who teaches it. At my school we have had history teachers, english teachers, world language teachers, and even the art teacher teach our business classes because they had gaps in their schedule...none of them had a business credential.
