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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?
5 comments:
In general, many employers, across private and public institutions, give a "bump" for increased education. With that said, I will address your specific suggestion.
Would this "bump" removal be retroactive? If so I am sure a lot of teachers, myself included, would do the math and realize they would be more appreciated, as assistant managers at Wal Mart, tire changers at Les Schwab, or any other government job, including the janitorial positions at the schools they would be leaving. Yes, I would make more as the night janitor at my school, I would work more days; however, I too would get a paid vacation (no paid vacation in teaching, only five holiday jobs) that I could take whenever I please.
Or would it be grandfathered, and in this case which potential future teachers would be turned away? Please do not throw moral and social incentives associated with high callings and purpose. We are not pastors. I love teaching, but at the end of the day, I have a family to feed too, and I could do that with better paying jobs that don't require me to bring home work or take extra classes; yours for example. I hope you are confident that your course is improving my students' learning, and would think it valuable that teachers continue their educations by taking course like yours.
If a MA, or MAT, is not going to be compensated, would it still be required? Assuming it is not required, what coursework do our teacher candidates give up; is it less upper division work in content areas or is it education classes? If I were to not have an MAT, do I teach without the benefit of an extra 30 credits in writing intensive Social Science courses (which you no doubt see I needed all I could get to I prove my marginal writing) or do I get to enter the classroom with having never student taught, learned how to assess, write curriculum, meet the needs of special populations, or conduct qualitative and quantitatively classroom research?
Putting the focus back on the real important matter, the students, Levitt and Dubner assert that the quality of education for students is the direct result of the quality of the teacher. Quality teachers are attracted too, retained in, and trained for, the profession of teaching. If "Every Profession is an Assault on the Laity," I am concerned that your proposal will hand the education of our children back to the laity. If this did happen, and I leave the high school because my MAT degree is no longer compensated may I come join with you at WOU as Faculty, not just adjunct, with my MAT?
If saving money is the goal, there are a host of other things to be done. If improving education is the goal, the slashing of summer break and reducing prep loads are at the top of my list. I currently teach 246 (IEP students double weighted) students a day. Without the preparation from my MAT program I don't know that I could do it and without the compensation for my MAT Degree, I am not sure I would want to.
I am happy to disclose Central 13j contracts, salary schedules, and compensation packages. I will also help you get ahold of our budget if you still think that shortfalls need to be eaten by us teachers. I also am curious to read research on student learning gains in regard to teacher education levels.
Aha. At long last I have found somebody even willing to consider that a Masters or PhD is not an absolute must for teaching.
But in Universities, the hurdle for even being considered is a PhD. In the field of business, anybody without a PhD is a shudra as far as academia is concerned. And equally an academician is subject of derisory laughter as far as businessmen are concerned. And I thought management was an applied "science".
I am sure Ramesh knows by now that I go where the evidence and arguments lead me to and that if I then reach unconventional and unpopular conclusions, well, I reach them until and unless new evidence makes me change my mind.
Thus, for years, I have nothing but evidence to confirm the conclusion that more degrees and more education doesn't guarantee better quality of teaching. Teaching is, after all, a lot more than content knowledge, which is the pretty much only aspect that education delivers. Helping others--kids or adults--learn is a completely different ballgame.
In most of my regular classes, I comment at some point that if they thought my teaching sucked, well, they ought to be happy that they were not students in my classes when I started teaching. I even have a videotape of me in the classroom, which I should convert to digital format, to remind me how awful I was. The funniest thing is this: even then students used to comment that they had professors even worse, and I shudder thinking about how atrocious their teaching must be ...
The question then is how we can create better teachers. My point is that providing an economic incentive via a graduate degree is by itself a wasted approach to creating better teachers. Research does not conclusively lead us to an understanding that teachers with grad degrees are better of better quality in the third grade than teachers with undergrad degrees alone.
The fact that teachers don't get paid enough--remember that there are plenty of high schools where teachers earn way more than what I earn as a university faculty--is entirely a different matter. In other op-eds I have written about this aspect--as a society, we hold certain professionals in high esteem, and some we push way down into the gutters. For instance, lawyers rank low in such polls, and teachers are up there with pastors. Guess what? the higher the respect and esteem, the lower the monetary compensation!
Despite the fact that I get paid very little compared to many other professionals, and despite that I could have earned way more as an electrical engineer, especially during the dotcom years, my little earnings do not bother me at all. Because, I understand that what we teachers earn is a reflection of society putting its money where its mouth is. We would rather pay movie stars and ball players in the millions. More on this here:
http://indigoite.blogspot.com/2013/05/from-those-to-whom-much-is-given-much.html
Thus, within this environment, if we want to create better teachers, then how can we go about it? My point in the op-ed is that we are fooling ourselves when we equate more degrees or years of schooling with better teachers.
As for the conspiracy against the laity, I do not mean an individual teacher as an accomplice even. But, the industry effectively hides from the public things that will reveal the bad and the ugly aspects of it ... and, as an industry, it too very well misleads the public more often than not.
More degrees may do not lead to a better educator, but I still want to know what is sacrificed, content or pedagogy? Should an elementary teacher never have had to take a Geo 418, or similar course? I can see it inspiring some awesome lessons for young learners.
I know that most of my elementary colleagues earn undergrads in Education and then they are required to earn a MA in Ed. What if there was no BA in Education and they had to follow the typical HS teacher, who gets licensure with MAT, route?
On the topic of licensure, how does that look in your reduced degree proposal? I challenge your assertion that MA "bump" is status quo; advanced degrees are relatively new to educator preparation. In Oregon an elementary teacher (K-6) only needed a high school education and a one year training program at the Oregon Normal School before the 1970s; they were qualified and running a classroom at the wise age of 19. Do we really want to regress to this old model of easy entry and exit into teaching?
My directing the focus to wages was detractive and bad rhetoric. I don't think teachers are underpaid, just over worked nine months and laying idle three. We are like commercial fisherman; but last I checked there is little compelling science behind having a "season" on education. However, a discussion of wages is important when considering that even people with a calling choose to leave teaching because they want more income. I personally live happy and secure on my wage and think everyone should be able to on 50k a year household income. Bringing sports stars into the mix is not relevant, player wages are pure supply and demand with a dash of speculation. I can't hit a MLB fastball, but I can teach and I do think I am lower supply, and should be in higher demand, than a janitor.
Have you seen American Teacher, available on Netflix? I certainly do not agree with all of the film, but it does raise a few interesting questions.
The questions you bring up are exactly along the lines of what I argued in that op-ed: we need to engage in discussions in order to figure out what exactly do we want in teachers, instead of assuming that more credentialing is the way to go. And even within that credentialing, what ought to be the content?
It is, ahem, not within my pay grade to figure out the answers to those questions. What I do know is this: we are not having those discussions. Worse, the education industry fights tooth and nail any time such discussions come up.
You are further confirming my point when you write that ball players salaries are a result of market forces. That is also my point: people exercise their preferences in favor in ways that end up with millionaire sports people, while teachers get paid little. So, if we do respect and value individual preference, then, hey, there is no point complaining that teachers don't get paid enough--the people have spoken even though they simultaneously respect teachers a lot more than they do the sportsfolk ;)
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