this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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On one end, people in tech have long laughed at the need for formal education, which about half of developers don't have formal education and are self taught.
On the other end, these kinds of jobs tend to attract a wide range of people with questionable skill sets and even more questionable ulterior motives
What's important here is context. It's possible to succeed in tech without formal training because up until very recently (and arguably still today) there are not widespread higher educational programs and standards for many tech roles. Also tech changes so frequently that what is taught in a formal program today may be meaningless just 5 years later. Tech almost requires some level of self education, and it is pretty unique in that regard. Experience is important but it's also completely possible to gain experience on your own with a home lab setup that uses identical technology to what you would find in a professional situation.
Being an educational administrator is not a job that has dramatically changed on a fundamental level in many years, and what changes there are come gradually. Also it's a leadership role, which I think a reasonable person would agree demands experience on top of formal training. Not specific experience with a certain technology, but on the job experience doing the types of things people will be looking to you to make decisions about.
So in short, I think it's quite difficult to draw effective parallels between tech work not necessarily benefitting from formal training and experience, and an educational leadership role like superintendent.
If tech workers are using standards in their field to justify changing standards in a completely unrelated field, I think that is a pretty gross misapplication of logic.