By Kristin
A few weeks ago I spent an evening in Issaquah providing feedback on parts of a document called "The People's Plan for Education in Washington State," something Excellent Schools Now has put together to increase student success. I wasn't alone – there were about forty teachers there, including Washington's 2010 Teacher of the Year Jay Maebori.
There were many things in the plan that I agreed with but one thing troubled me, and that was the recommendation to eliminate salary bumps based on earning a master's degree, something that would be put into place for new teachers. I disagreed with it in Issaquah because I feel strongly that if we're in the business of encouraging students to believe in education, then we need to encourage teachers to believe in it – that it means something, that it makes you better at what you want to do, and that it brings with it financial rewards.
On page 2, the plan lists as three of its goals the following:
2) Raise expectations to college and work readiness for all, and eliminate all achievement gaps
3) Increase the college- and career-ready high school graduation rate
4) Increase attainment of living-wage certificates, associate’s degrees and bachelor’s degrees for all students, especially students of color
But then on page 8 it suggests that "the salary enhancement for master's degrees for all new teachers" be removed from the salary schedule.
I couldn't disagree more. On the one hand, educators are being told that getting children to university is the most important role of primary and secondary education. At the same time, simply because there's no evidence to suggest a teacher with a master's degree has students who score better on tests, a suggestion is made that teachers should earn nothing more than a bachelor's degree? How about showing students that the more education you have, the more you earn? Isn't that something that fits with "… attainment of living-wage certificates, associate’s degrees and bachelor’s degrees for all students, especially students of color"?
I shared my feelings about this in Issaquah and filled out the survey Excellent Schools Now had on their site, but I realized encouraging educators to earn advanced degrees is even MORE important once I started training for the Seattle half marathon after a ten year hiatus from running. I hadn't logged even four miles before my seven year old daughter had dug out her too-small Nikes and laced them on, handed me my sports watch and begged me to time her as she "trained" by sprinting up and down our block.
"What are you training for?" I asked her, because I know she's way too smart to be training for a half marathon after ten years of doing nothing more athletic than walking to the local brewpub every week for a cream ale and reuben.
"I'm just running," she said. "Like you."
So now I feel more strongly than ever that if a teacher can talk about earning her master's degree, can share the grueling details of graduate school interviews and sitting the GRE, can wear the fancy robe with long sleeves when attending high school graduation, then that teacher might encourage her students to be academically ambitious.
I know many of us here are in favor of more vocational education offerings, and not totally in support of the idea that the only good future for a child is to be found in the lecture halls of a university. Still, for many children having a role model who has earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree, and even maybe a doctorate degree, can be a powerful influence. And let's take it a step further, to the unpleasant and tacky area of money and material goods. If the teacher with the master's degree is the one who is financially comfortable, it sends a powerful message, especially to kids who think they need to be Kobe Bryant or Mos Def to drive a nice car.
It's not only the role-modeling that matters. Most teachers I know who earned a master's degree after teaching for a number of years felt the experience made them a better teacher. In fact, many private schools will hire teachers who have a master's in their subject area but who don't have a teaching certificate.
So what do you think? Do you think it's a cost-effective measure to eliminate the salary bump for a master's degree?
Well, in Bucharest, if you don’t have a masters degree in your field of study, you can’t teach in high school, so it’s more of a prerequisite. In the past, all you used to need was just a pedagogical module , but now it seems it’s been shifted to a “higher” level. Truth is, it’s worse than ever before. China and Japan are the only countries that still hold promise through their educational system, along with a few Scandinavian countries.
I fully support keeping the pay bump for graduate degrees an would advocate they be increased. I would love to persue a PhD and know quantitiatively and qualitatively it would improve my craft as a teacher. But I don’t because there is not adequate return for my investment. Ten years later even with the salary bump I’m still paying for my graduate degree. So I went after my National Boards instead. Not only has it given me a great monetary return on my investment, it has impacted my approach to teaching in ways no graduate program could. That said, I’m still hungry for a PhD.
Kristen points out something that is lost in most cost-benefit conversations regarding teacher compensation: Unless we as teachers have achieved graduate degrees, we have no credibility whe we talk to students about long term education goals or even the value of life long learning. It is just like in my role teaching English as a Second Language. My students view me and my exhortations about the value of being bilingual highly suspect until they learn I also speak a second language. It’s one thing to tell a kid such and such will be good for them. It’s a whole different ball game when you can demonstrate what such and such has done for you.
That said Jason and Mark point out the galling fact that many post graduate degrees are barely worth the paper they are printed on. I know embarrassingly too many teachers who have gone after “click for credit” Masters “degrees” for the sole purpose of receiving the pay bump. Neither their knowledge base or teaching practice has been demonstrably improved. Kristen touched on the need for graduate programs to prove their worthiness for a pay bump in a grantRFP like fashion. That would be good. But even better, as Mark suggested, let’s get rid of teh paper mills and demand graduate degrees that are genuinely worth our time, effort, and pay increase.
Jason, I agree with pretty much everything you’re saying.
But the two big arguments against a salary increase for a masters degree are 1)these are hard times and we can’t afford it and 2)a master’s degree might not be worth much (but it often is, if you listen to teachers who have them).
First, I don’t think the state is going to save as much money by eliminating a master’s degree salary bump as it thinks it will, especially if the bump is eliminated only for new teachers. There aren’t all that many new teachers, and the bump’s not that significant. We’d save a lot more money by telling people whose children have special needs that their children are going to receive the same resources as any other child. That would save a ton of money. I point this out to show that our mentality of “let’s look for another place to trim the fat” is getting to the absurd. There’s no more fat to trim. The state must be able to raise revenue. The state would be much better off to stop looking for ways to cut more money from public education and instead look for ways to fully fund public education.
As for a master’s degree being meaningful or not, let’s start making some noise that it has to be. If universities are finding educators to be a cash cow, then let’s start holding them accountable for quality. Does anyone know if it’s true that Gonzaga and Evergreen guarantee the quality of their graduates from the ed programs? That intrigues me. I have to start poking around and seeing if other programs do that as well.
I still hold my original argument – that it’s important, if teachers are going to be selling the value of education to students, that teachers have themselves pursued higher education. And I think they should be compensated for doing so. Making that investment pay off for districts might require a little work on their part, to set some standards for master’s programs, to ask teachers (as grant givers do) to demonstrate how the master’s degree has positively impacted students.
I think the worst possible option is to tell teachers they’ve gone far enough if they’ve earned a bachelor’s.
Nice sharing.
Mark says: “Other than the intrinsic benefit and the value of doing better in their practice, what benefit would the teacher reap who DOES choose to take such PD funds?”
There are two reasons we pay more for master’s degrees (from an economic perspective). The first is that schools are using it as a proxy for quality and therefore expect greater productivity in return for their investment. The second reason is because earning a degree represents a significant personal cost for prospective teachers that they would not take on if there wasn’t a subsequent benefit.
In our current environment, it is pretty clear that on aggregate a master’s degree is not a good proxy for productivity. And under my system, the monetary costs for additional training are removed. I believe that the personal benefits and professional benefits are high enough that it makes up for the time costs. If not, I would argue any additional premium for using that PD should be very low. Not everyone has to use the money, and not all the PD that it could be used for will be good for the school, but it’s a benefit that will be worthwhile for some folks.
The point of paying more for a master’s is because that education is supposed to be a proxy for increased quality through better training. The reason the pay increase is needed is to ensure that teachers can justify the cost of the credential because they’ll benefit later. By removing the cost of additional training and education, there is no need to provide the additional benefit to pay for that cost.
Kristin said: “But then you yourself say that teachers should be reimbursed for seeking professional development. A lot of professional development, in my experience, is meaningless.
Instead of throwing out a salary increase for additional education, let’s start raising the standards for the education offered to teachers.”
My hope would be that the PD would be a lot more meaningful if it was up to teachers to choose what they want and whether to participate or not. It’s a benefit to use if there’s something you personally will find useful or think you need help with. Otherwise, no problem, don’t go.
I think we absolutely should be raising the standards coming out of MAT programs. I just think it’s expensive as hell to keep that benefit while we wait for the university setting to change. If anyone abhors change it’s universities. What’s more likely to force change? Changing standards written in regulations that are formulaic and prescriptive or removing the pay increase that allows universities to entice students to overpay for bad training? If universities lose the main reason they have customers, they’ll be forced to improve or die. Hopefully, most of the teacher training programs out there right now will simply go away. The remaining few will have to be good enough to draw people there on their own merits.
I received my B.S. in Elementary education. I don’t know if that is a path available in Washington. Most people I know complete a Bachelors then receive their MA to get their teaching endorsement. They enter the teaching field with a MA and very limited teaching experience. I don’t think this is wise from a personal standpoint or for the education system more generally.
First, post graduate degrees require a large investment in time and money. This investment is lost for the large percent of teachers who leave early or are forced from the profession. Second, it is important to have experience to draw on when engaging in postgrad course work.
I agree my MA probably hasn’t improved my teaching craft. At least not in terms or statistically relevant measurable outcomes. But it has allowed me to teach with more awareness. I am better able to apply, or at least understand, research. I can speak more clearly about curricular decisions and the rational behind instructional choices. This creates value for the educational system and for which I should be compensated.
Jason, I hear what you are saying. Mark said it too, that there are some programs out there that offer meaningless instruction, so there are teachers with master’s degrees that don’t mean much.
But then you yourself say that teachers should be reimbursed for seeking professional development. A lot of professional development, in my experience, is meaningless.
Instead of throwing out a salary increase for additional education, let’s start raising the standards for the education offered to teachers.
My master’s degree was earned alongside my teaching certificate at a university Teacher Education Program. It was worthwhile. I had an awesome assessments professor, three really good adolescent development professors, and an excellent professor whose course title I do not even remember, but what I do remember is that he taught us exactly the way I wanted to teach my own students. I still think of him when I kneel down next to a desk and talk to a child.
I may have made more sense of the theory if I’d taught a bit before we studied it, but I am still a better teacher for my experience, and when I talk to my students about continuing their education beyond senior year, I don’t have to talk about graduate school from the distanced position of one who’s never been there.
Jason, your argument makes sense even if I do disagree. One thing I would have you consider, though, is that while the system your offer in your last paragraph would help offset the costs of professional development (which are typically shouldered by the teacher him/herself), you mention that “the teachers who don’t continue perpetually to engage in professional learning outside of what’s required for the job get no benefit.” To that I ask: Other than the intrinsic benefit and the value of doing better in their practice, what benefit would the teacher reap who DOES choose to take such PD funds? Or, do teachers once again need to take one for the team, and unlike other professions where increased qualifications or training result in increased pay, are teachers just expected to make the sacrifice of time and effort for the good of the children?
Lest it seem like I’m just in it for the money–I know of many teachers who are constantly investing their time, money, and energy into honing their craft with no expectation of a pay bump–they read professional journals, attend conferences, take non-degree coursework, correspond and collaborate, and all kinds of other forms of personal professional development. I do the same, to an extent. No one is in teaching for the money. However, we still have bills, families, obligations, which this extra training draws us away from (especially those who work second jobs to pay off those student loans). Not tuning my violin for the poor me concert, just laying it out there.
I say keep the bump.
My Masters in Education completely changed the way I teach, especially in regards to my use of data to inform my instruction. The problem with the way that the oft-cited study measured student improvement was solely through standardized testing. Most of my students have no more testing; they are past that stage of high school education. My students and I would never be part of that study.
In what field do we say that more education is not deserving of more pay? In what field do we say that more education does not improve the employee?
The total lack of support for preparation in education research is disturbing and suggests that rewards for this training do not spill over into academic improvement for students.
I have always been puzzled that the response to this finding has generally been to suggest that preparation doesn’t matter as opposed to believing that our current preparation programs and structures plain stink.
So honestly, yes, I think it’s a good idea during a cash-strapped time that this benefit goes away. Right now, the vast majority of programs that a teacher goes to will not be worthwhile for students. It’s an expensive benefit provided to teachers without much aggregate return for the classroom.
What I think we should do instead is provide each teacher with some allowance for reimbursement to be used for professional development. This way the money is given for more education and better training that the teacher selects from a much broader pool of possibilities that they feel will be most beneficial to their own practice. This is a far better use of resources. Some teachers will use this money to make grad school more affordable, even if it’s one class at a time. Many will not. And the teachers who don’t continue, perpetually to engage in professional learning outside of what’s required for the job get no benefit.
Silly Kristin, everyone knows anyone and their neighbor’s dog can teach. It certainly doesn’t require any kind of special training. (what is the emoticon for sarcasm, again?)
The bump should stay.
What DOES need to happen is perhaps some of the more diploma-mill-ish masters programs ought to be shut down. (That’s big talk on my part, but I really don’t know much about whether/if such colleges exist in great numbers…I know it is a trouble that private sector businesses are facing.)
I value my MAT, not because of the pay bump, but because I know within my heart that it (despite whatever flaws I could pick out within the program) made me a better teacher than I would have been with out it. Do I have data to prove it? No, but where there is no proof, I have faith. Simply, I believe it, no matter what the data does or doesn’t say. I speak only for myself, but I bet there are more of us in this business who genuinely sought to gain expertise through our MA program: the pay bump is recognition of that effort toward self-improvement for the benefit of our students.