If we are interested in student learning, does it matter if the teacher has a PhD?

One can easily imagine that many school districts in Oregon will be in situations similar to the Salem-Keizer School District, which is about $20 million short in its budget. 

We can expect education budgets to further tighten up because economic conditions might not dramatically improve soon—neither in Oregon nor in the country.  The anemic recovery from the Great Recession means that serious budget issues will continue to dog school districts for a couple of more years, at least.

If ever a case can be made that a crisis is also an opportunity to reexamine how we have always done business, then, in this context, I hope that school districts and state officials will look into the issue of the master’s degree salary bump.

Oregon, like most states, pays higher salaries to teachers with master’s degrees compared to those who do not.  However, when it comes to student learning and outcomes, there is nothing conclusive about differences between teachers with master’s degrees and otherwise.  Yet, compensation packages for teachers typically are higher for those with the master’s degree.

A national study completed in 2007 estimated that about 2.1 percent of expenditures were caused by the master’s degree bump.  The same study estimated that the master’s bump cost Oregon almost $110 million. 

When officials are searching for pennies in the budgets, and parents are ready to hold bake sales, do we want to overlook this expensive line item?

Advanced credentials alone do not make a successful teacher who can improve student learning.  One only needs to check with students in my classes in order to find out that even a doctorate doesn’t make a good teacher out of me!

To make things worse, by paying more for master’s degrees, we have also instituted an incentive system for the generation of graduate degrees, which are also partly paid for by taxpayers at public universities, including where I teach.  Thus, according to the same study, over a decade, the highest growth rate was in graduates in master’s degrees in education.

That means we taxpayers end up paying twice: first in partly subsidizing the production of these master’s graduates, and then paying higher salaries because teachers have those very degrees.  We do all these even though a master’s degree is neither required nor sufficient to improve student learning.

I should underscore here that this is not any partisan position.  President Obama’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, stated a few months ago that “state and local governments should rethink their policies of giving pay raises to teachers who have master’s degrees because evidence suggests that the degree alone does not improve student achievement.”

Perhaps this is the right time to ask ourselves, “does one really need a master's degree to teach at the elementary school level?” 

I love the pursuit of knowledge, and recognize that degree programs offer structured routes to advanced education.  But, with a stalled economic recovery and budget shortfalls, can we afford to pay more for these artificial salary bumps in schools, especially when they do not necessarily improve student learning?