In order to teach in the public school, you have to be certified in relevant intended area of teaching...You don't have to have a Master degree.

If you intend to teach Chinese in elementary education, personally, I haven't heard of any yet...The second language in elementary schools or high schools in the states mostly is Spanish...Chinese, normally is taught by the tutor instead of in the school...So personally, I don't think to teach Chinese in the states will be a feasible option...I am not saying it is impossible...but kind of difficult.

However, you can be an ESL teacher...Mostly ESL works in the urban education setting...Also there is another kind of teaching is called Bi-Lingual education...depends on the individual school...As a Chinese, it is preferable to be a ESL teacher in the School district where there are certain number of Chinese immigrants...

If you need to know the exact program, you should always go to the website of the schools that has this program...I believe there will be program description available on the website...

As for the thesis, be honest with you, professors here will not expect you to have any...that is fine...even if you do, but if the paper is not related to the intended area of study, that doesn't make any difference either...so personally i don't think you will need any kind of research or paper to present....

True...nothing is easy...no shortcut...the whole process is painful and satisfaction not guaranteed...My philosophy is: do what you want to do so that when you retrospect later, you can say: at least I tried at least...

Tthere is a program called Educational Information Technology....The graduates will work in the education related settings...well...as for the scholarship or financial aid...it is not very optimistic...

Some of the thoughts:

My answer or my opinion is absolutely personal and they are not authoritative or absolutely right...Individual should use own discretion...

    另外，私立学校，CHARTER SCHOOL，catholic school不必有教师执照。不是取决于学校的好坏。在美国是私立学校吃香，收费高，但public school很成问题，这也就引出了近年来的多数家长希望学生到catholic school去读书的问题。

    关于奖学金，照我的教授的说法：很少是读博士而没有任何GA，RA的，就是说是PHD的学生基本都是免费的。