SMHC

A new analysis by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and the Center for American Progress suggests that school districts should rethink paying teachers for receiving master’s degrees.  It argued that master’s degrees have little or no relation to student achievement in the classroom, and concluded that strategically, the “master’s bump” makes little sense.

SMHC supports a compensation system that rewards teachers based on measures of teachers’ performance, provides additional incentives for teaching in content shortage areas and high need schools, and provides bonuses for improving student achievement.  Salary incentives for master’s degrees could be appropriate but only in a teacher’s area of licensure.  SMHC also argues that new teacher salary schedules can be created that use scores from a performance-based teacher evaluation system to trigger the largest pay increases. 

To download the full report, go to: Separation of Degrees: State-By-State Analysis of Teacher Compensation for Master’s Degrees.

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