Report urges end to extra pay for Master's degrees

States are spending billions in education dollars each year rewarding teachers for earning advanced degrees that show little correlation with improved student achievement, a report released yesterday concludes.

 

The policy of giving teachers salary "bumps" after they earn master's degrees in education "is in the drinking water everywhere, but we know the relationship between the degree and student achievement is nonexistent," said Raegen T. Miller, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think tank.

 

Mr. Miller co-wrote the policy brief"one in a series on school financing in the economic downturn"with Marguerite Roza, a professor at the Center for Reinventing Public Education at University of Washington, in Seattle.

 

By decoupling such degrees from salary schedules, states and districts could free up funding for other types of compensation policies that might promote student achievement, the authors suggest in the report.

 

The brief arrives even as transformation of teacher-compensation systems rises to the top of the national agenda, propelled by the $200 million in additional money provided through the federal economic-stimulus package.

 

Read the rest of the article here.