Mark Sass, a teacher since 1994, teaches at Legacy High School in the Adams Five Star School District.
Public policy reflects our values. Embedded within the arcane and obtuse language of policy is evidence of what a society honors, admires, and respects. This holds true for policies that impact millions of us and for policies that affect a few.
Recently, I attended an “Appendix E” meeting at my school. Appendix E refers to the section in our master agreement dealing with layoffs in schools. Due to budget cuts, we have to cut a teacher in our department. The first to go are any probationary teachers. If there are no probationary teachers, you go to Appendix E and follow a protocol that involves a series of variables involving points. Since we have no probationary teachers, we had to use Appendix E.
A representative from human resources attends, as well as an association representative. All of the teachers are requested to attend, but not required. Each teacher has to fill out a “cheat sheet” that outlines the various point options for a teacher. This is an open and transparent process. At various points in the meeting, point totals are read aloud. It becomes apparent after a few readings who is not in danger of being cut. In case of a tie, Appendix E uses some tie-breaking formulas. At the end of the process, which took us about an hour, we all knew who was going to be cut.
We have a very professional and collegial department, so the process was not as tense as I imagine it can get. We joked about how we thought “there would be no math involved since we are all social science teachers.” Or that there should be an attendance bonus of 50 points for teachers who showed up to the process (some colleagues had other commitments, like coaching). I am very proud to be a member of such a thoughtful and open department.
At the end of the meeting I as well as a few colleagues I talked with, felt disappointed and ashamed at the means by which the decision was made. Ashamed that after it was all over, you could not say that the least effective teacher was cut. But then Appendix E isn’t about effectiveness in the classroom; as a matter of fact, there isn’t one reference in the entire process about what you do IN the classroom.
Here are the point opportunities. See if you can find what our process values:
State Certification/Licensure and Area- 26 points for endorsement in area to be reduced and another 5 points for any additional endorsement areas.
Teaching experience-one point per semester taught for a maximum total of 24 points. Additional points per semester for teaching experience outside of the district for a maximum total of 10 points. Points awarded for how long you have taught in your current school as well as points for time in other schools. The maximum total for these two areas cannot exceed 28 points.
Training-Points awarded, not to exceed 11, for training received through the district and for training outside of the district, not to exceed 11. Advanced degrees: 4 for masters, 8 for specialist degree, and 12 for doctorate.
Non-teaching Duties-Co-curricular sponsor, maximum of 4 points. Chairperson, 6 points maximum. Coaching, maximum of 9 points. Member of a committee, in building maximum 8 points, at district level maximum 4 points.
That’s it. That’s how our profession decides who is to be cut: longevity, training, membership on committees, and co-curricular. Can you imagine any other profession using only these characteristics as a representation of what they value? Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that longevity, training, membership, and co-curricular should be factors. But the only factors?
Our association is addressing some of the language in Appendix E. I hope that eventually, as SB 10-191 is implemented, teacher performance can be a factor in these decisions. Our current Appendix E language is a reflection of a time long past, a time when administrators used personal preference to make personnel decisions, a time when we put into policy values that have since changed.
Popularity: 52% [?]
Just to provide another window on “how our profession decides who is to be cut”.
In DPS we have two processes. A Reduction in Force (RiF) is district directed and is still seniority based. In the nearly 12 years I’ve worked in the district, we have not had a RiF and I don’t anticipate that we’ll have one this year.
A Reduction in Building gets handled by a school’s Personnel Subcommittee. Once a consideration pool has been determined, everyone in that pool interviews. At the end of the process, instead of picking a candidate to hire, they pick one to cut. As far as I know, as with hiring, the criteria flow from the school improvement plan.
Seniority is not listed as factor and has not been for a long time in Denver. It was eliminated from our contract through the collective bargaining process. Our teachers union agreed to it and our membership ratified it.
My description was that of a RiF or reduction in force.
Jeff, how does one get into the “consideration” pool?
The Collaborative School Committee decides based on information from the district regarding a reduction in the number of teachers assigned to the building or based on the decision to make a change to the program at a school (eliminating wood shop, for example).
From the contract, “The consideration group may be a grade level, department or specialty area. The consideration group shall be defined as narrowly as possible based on program needs.”
Does Adams 12 have a RiB process or are staffing levels handled by the district?
Jeff, the same process is used for both RiF and RiB. I like the DPS’s RiB process.
Thanks for sharing Mark. What you describe is a total and complete outrage. This is why there is so much frustration with the “profession” as it currently operates.
I agree with you that these factors shouldn’t be the only ones used in these decisions, but do you really, seriously think that administrators no longer use personal preference when making personnel decisions?
Sabrina, In my experience no, it has not been a factor. However, I realize some teachers have not shared my experience. When SB 191 is implemented, it would be foolish if not self-destructive for a principal to use personal preference versus “teacher quality” to make a personnel decision since the principal’s own job will reliy on quality teachers.
I also believe that DPS’s current process, as described above by Jeff, would also inhibit principals from using personal preference.
I have also been fortunate enough not to have that problem but I know teachers who have.
It’s important to note that the process I describe really only applies to non-probationary teachers. Probationary teachers can be non-renewed for any or no reason. Personal differences certainly could play a role there.
I’m sure I will be a lone voice here, but “personal preference” is a really broad term, and some of what often falls within it is, in my view, reasonable: is the teacher aligned with the mission and culture of the school? Do they have a good working relationship with the other staff and administration? Do they want to be part of an instructional team, or to work primarily independently? There is clearly a large swath of personal preference that is not appropriate, but I think the idea of eliminating all subjective criteria from a principal is misplaced and unrealistic (and would be unique in any organization).
I personally think that we need to move towards a system of mutual consent, while also making it easier to teachers to change schools. Just as not every school is a good fit for all students, not every school (and administration) is a good fit for all teachers, and we need a more flexible system that allows teachers to join schools with cultures and leadership teams where they can be most effective.
Based on your first sentence, I guess you’ll be surprised that I agree with you. The only caveat I will add is that I need to believe in the competence and good will of the principal before I can accept the personal preference s/he exercises. I have been fortunate to work for principals I respect and some I hold in very high regard. I have watched from afar as others have enforced their preferences to the clear detriment of the school community. “Because I said” isn’t really an adequate explanation for anything.
Like you, I believe that totally objective decision making is very unlikely and probably impossible (maybe I’m overstating your opinion). How did we loose faith in human judgment (this connects to my beliefs about assessment too)? A good leader will, and in fact must use the kind of discretion you mention. And teachers must also be able to exercise their discretion which currently is rather limited. Ironically, our non-probationary status is part of what binds us to a district in which we might not fit but cannot afford to leave. Talk about unintended consequences.
So…coaching potentially earns 9 points, but masters or specialist degrees only 4 or 8 respectively? That speaks volumes.
Except that neither coaching nor a masters degree has any research-based correlation with effective teaching. Hope remains that SB 191 will lead us to well-developed evaluation systems that can make more valuable distinctions based on performance and student growth, especially as it pertains to major decisions like compensation and reductions in force.
Thanks for sharing, Mark.
“Our current Appendix E language is a reflection of a time long past, a time when administrators used personal preference to make personnel decisions, a time when we put into policy values that have since changed.”
Personal preference by administrators is still used (or at least incredibly influential) in hiring decisions as well as to decide whether a teacher is “In Need of Improvement” or not amont other things. So, I’m not so sure that values have changed all that much.
Here’s another way not to cut a teacher. Eliminate her school, replace the school with a charter, replace her with a non-unionized Teach for America teacher, put her in a holding pool for two years as mandated in SB 191, not find another job for her because there aren’t any in a shrinking labor pool increasingly filled with non-unionized charter school teachers, then let her go–forever–through no fault of her own, except she chose to go to work in a high needs school in the first place.
By now I should really be used to this sort of perverse logic: traditional schools are inherently superior to charter schools; union teachers inherently superior to non-union teachers. No mention whatever of quality or effectiveness, teaching positions are guaranteed for life as the system (and not the individual) is somehow responsible to “find another job for her” and any termination is “forever” etc. etc.
At some point we will worry less about who is of which type, and focus, shockingly, on quality and the educational outcomes for kids. Mark asked, very appropriately, about the impact of the Appendix E policy on effectiveness in the classroom. By the end of the comment thread, that noble and logical perspective is, once more, drowned by petty political rhetoric.
It’s not petty political rhetoric to eliminate teachers’ jobs and not ask why. It’s not about teachers v. kids. We’re in this together. The state is currently trying to define effectiveness and is finding it hard to do. It’s far easier to be an effective teacher in a rich, white, suburban school than a poor, 100% minority, urban school. A friend of mine was considered one of the best English teachers at Fairview High School in Boulder, then he went to work at Montbello High School, where he quit in frustration because the students wouldn’t come to school or do their homework. Same teacher, different schools. Effective or not? I hate the false choices that seem to take center stage here. Yes, poor kids deserve a great education. But middle class teachers deserve to keep their jobs, too, and they should not have to lose them at the whim of “reformers” who seem to put teachers at the center of everything that’s wrong with schools.
So why, given your friend’s experience, do you castigate the closing of Montbello and the emergence of other options, including non-traditional programs? Would you have advised him to continue to work in a school that prevented him from being effective? Do you support such a school continuing on the same path (he clearly did not)?
The choice at the center of your initial comment is false precisely because you made it based on type and not quality. Shockingly, eliminate the descriptions and you have schools replacing schools, and teachers replacing teachers. Had you written:
“Eliminate her low-performing school, replace it with a school that has a history of academic results, replace her with a different teacher for whom that school and student population is a better match…”
and you would lose most of the outrage (I think, maybe not).
We can argue if the FNE reforms will accomplished that substitution (and I am highly skeptical, but for reasons of quality, not of type), but you argue that simply replacing a traditional school with a charter – or a unionized teacher with TFA – is automatically wrong. That is my objection.
It is quite possible that a teacher may be effective at a rich, white, suburban school and not at a high FRL, high minority urban school (and vice-versa). These are different situations that may require different types of teachers, with different skills, talents, and motivation. The idea that any teacher can be effective in any school is clearly shortsighted – why not help figure out (and allow) a better match between school and teacher by better understanding what makes an individual teacher effective, and where those skills are best used.
The impetus for 191 – and the point of Mark’s post – was that education makes all sorts of decisions based on criteria other than quality, effectiveness, and student outcomes. To blame charter schools and TFA teachers for school closures – where even you cite as examples of a poorly-peerforming school – perpetuates this trend.
To start to discuss and define teacher and schools quality (which is not easy), and to recognize it in different guises and situations, will ultimately help the teaching profession immensely. But to do that we have to cast aside the stereotypes with which you began if we are to be “in this together”.
Leigh, help me out and show me where in SB 191 it mandates “a holding pool for two years.”
I really have read the bill. It’s there. Check out the mutual consent section.
Leigh, I don’t think your comment is political rhetoric. Most charter schools do not perform better than their regular counterparts and the ones that do have “requirements” that parents and students need to fulfill (uniforms, parental involvement contracts) that the students in the regular schools would never commit to.
I don’t believe that you stated anywhere that union teachers were superior to non-union teachers, it is just that often the teachers in a charter school are “at will” employees and have very little (if any) employee rights. One parent doesn’t like you and you’re out.
Once all schools are charter schools – or vouchered private schools – there will be no more organized teachers and soon our insurance and our retirement will be gone also. I’d say they will also take away our high pay, but I don’t think that really exists.
Now, THAT is what I call political rhetoric. Obviously didn’t have anything to do with Mr. Sass’s well written article.
Mr. Ooms, research shows that student achievement in charter schools is no better than in regular schools. What’s “perverse” about that? Charter schools are proving to be too expensive, both financially and socially. Taxpayers are losing and students of color are being increasingly segregated, ethnically and by socioeconomic status.
Ed, honestly, we have had this email exchange so many times, to no apparent effect, that I think you are preparing to feature your lack of short-term recall in Memento II.
But here goes, yet again:
Denver’s charter schools are clearly doing better than their traditional schools: http://t.co/MPNclj2
Even the CREDO study so often used to support the rather spurious claim that student achievement is equivalent notes that, at the state level, there are many places where charters are doing better, including Colorado (see: http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/statepressreleases/Colorado.pdf) Indiana (see: http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/INPressReleaseMarch92011.pdf) and Illinois (see:http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/statepressreleases/Illinois.pdf) among other places.
The harvard economist Hoxby did a study focusing on charter schools in new york city:
http://www.nber.org/~schools/charterschoolseval/how_NYC_charter_schools_affect_achievement_sept2009.pdf
Now this is a nuanced topic, and depends on factors such as the quality of a local authorizer, and other criteria, but it is patently perverse and absurd to make sweeping generalizations by type. There are high-quality charter and traditional schools; there are high-quality union and non-union teachers.
As long as you remain politically tethered to type over quality, our debate will simply revolve around the same wheel. Personally, I’m losing interest in repeating myself repeating myself, and I would expect readers to feel the same.
Another value of times past is the idea that education was formed on an industrial model. Teachers were treated as interchangeable cogs that could be dropped into any assembly line (school). That’s one of the reasons RiF formulas used/use non-teaching variables like co-curricular or years of experience. The idea being that these qualities were transferable to any school.
Personal preference is involved, and I think should be involved, as long as it is involved in a collaborative process that included mutual consent. A school leader that relies solely on unilateral decision making will not be successful. And a master agreement policy that relies solely on “objective” information that does not include teacher performance will not work.
One of the challenges of a master agreement is that it needs to allow for site-based flexability. My school has embraced the idea of professional learning communities and a teacher that does not share those beliefs would be hard pressed to successfully integrate into our school. The challenge is to find ways to allow for sites to use their unique qualities that allows them to be successful in hiring and firing.
Dear Mark Sass,
Here’s the section in SB-10-191: 22-63-202 (pages 25-26). This is the heart of the controversy over the north Denver schools right now. Through no fault of their own, those teachers will lose their jobs.
Great read from Mark and excellent discussion that ALMOST avoided personal insults altogether. Very informative and nice to see agreement from those normally in opposing camps on our need to reform what the systems value.
The one question I pose is about the value placed on higher degrees. Is there research showing that higher degrees lead to more effective teaching?
There is a body of evidence stretching over at least a decade that there is no correlation between MA degrees for teachers and student achievement. Here is one of the better sources (although there are lots) http://bit.ly/dZPJ0J and a separate piece on a state-by-state comparison: http://bit.ly/g7x0FJ
What makes this even more remarkable is the money spent on Master degrees, which most teachers understandably pursue because they receive an automatic salary raise. Public education spends an estimated $8.6 billion in additional pay to teachers who have received Master degrees. Those funds could be deployed towards better PD or training, instead, we spend them on something that virtually everyone accepts has little impact.
Hmmm, so I have to ask, how are advanced degrees like tulips?!
Everyone wants them (or did in the 1600s) and is willing to pay higher and higher prices to get them. Sounds like we might be looping back to your post on a higher ed. bubble.
I was in an unusual situation (I arrived in DPS with a BS+60) and due to the structure of our pay schedule at the time, I would have had to complete a masters program and then 30 additional hours to get a pay raise. There was a strong economic disincentive to get the degree but I did it anyway because I like to learn and now that I’ve been through it, I have the vocabulary to explain why learning in a social setting such as a classroom is most productive for me.
Let me be clear, I do not argue in favor of continuing to give big pay raises for every (or any, necessarily) advanced degree that walks through the door. But in debates like this, the conclusion often results in throwing the baby out with the bath water. I just want to address a couple of important things that will not show up in a study attempting to correlate advanced degrees with student test scores, especially if those studies compare teachers with degrees to teachers without them instead of looking longitudinally at teachers before and after getting degrees.
Through my study I developed a clear philosophical position to under-gird my practice. This makes a coherent approach to teaching much more likely, especially given our any-way-the-wind-blows life as teachers. I developed at least a cursory understanding of the history of education both in this country and in others. I grappled with theories of knowing, learning and curriculum I otherwise would not have known about. I learned about teacher research (and that Action Research is a politically loaded term) and qualitative methods to balance our obsession with quantitative ones. I got to see the whole spectrum of thinking, from left to right, and was expected to locate myself in that spectrum while engaged with others coming from very different places. I got my first deep exposure to education policy, freeing me from the media derived understanding of what makes this thing go. I’ll admit, there was a lot of crap too.
None of these things will likely send my kids’ test scores to the moon but I firmly believe I am a better educator for it. For example, I have the tools to imagine the kind of school I want to work in and the knowledge to help found such a school. I am so sure that this will result in the outcomes I believe are important that I send my daughter to the school we have created. If I am unwilling to put my money (as I did when I joined ProComp) or my family where my mouth is, I don’t feel like i have much of a leg to stand on.
I recognize there are many other ways to gain these clearly beneficial outcomes of my masters in education. In particular, an apprentice styled teacher preparation program with appropriate links to and supports from the Academy and/or a professional learning community such as those often mentioned by Mark Sass would both be powerful opportunities to engage with appropriate material, experiment with its application, reflect on the results of experiments, etc.
In fact, I believed I was working on a vehicle to support exactly that kind of work when I helped to design the Professional Development Unit element of ProComp. I saw it as a way to reward real and useful learning outside of (or as part of) masters level study. I still believe we should recognize the useful learning rather than the degree itself.
Of course, this option was seriously limited for veteran teachers under ProComp when the system was rebalanced to favor bonuses rather than salary. Now they must fall back on the traditional acquisition of degrees in order to improve their salary. It also forces me to find another way to credibly recognize the development of the deep theoretical AND practical knowledge one must have in order to properly be called a Master Teacher (Masters to whom we could apprentice future teachers). As it is, this seems to happen by chance rather than by design. That’s just not good enough if we really want things to change.
Noah,
The answer to your question is yes and no. One study concluded that higher degrees in math do correlate with more effective teaching in math, but that study could be flawed. As for other subjects, well, they are also up for debate, and at least one study pointed out that some graduate programs are more successful at leading to more effective teaching than others. Big surprise. Plus, much of the research is from the 20th century. Perhaps some grad programs have improved since then. But then again…
Obviously, more education doesn’t always lead to more effective teaching, but that doesn’t mean that all educators are uneducable. People will find the evidence they are looking for to support their positions. We should keep in mind that “evidence” isn’t always valid or reliable. Then there is the question of how “effective teaching” was measured in the various studies…
Districts continue to rely on arbitrary measures to determine pay and position because the alternatives have great potential to prove to be equally arbitrary, or to create unintended consequences like punishing those willing to work with risky populations, or dessicating programs that are more difficult to measure.
Kevin,
Can you cite the math study that correlated higher degrees with more effective teaching? I’d be interested to see it.
My experience is with a ASCD report titled Teacher Quality Measures and Student Achievement in Mathematics (and I have seen others) which concludes:
“[no] significant associations between higher degrees of education or teaching experience and student achievement.”
Link: http://www.ascd.org/publications/researchbrief/v2n15/toc.aspx
I am not aware of the research leading us to conclude that higher degrees lead to more effective teaching. What is interesting is that it does not matter what the higher degree covers. Content area, education practice, leadership, even a law degree are all accepted as equal.
Right. And if more education doesn’t lead to more effective teaching, why does the state require teachers to buy credits in order to renew their licenses? Based on the argument that teaching should be judged by performance as measured by student assessment scores, maybe we should just give a provisional license to anyone who can pass a background check, and then yank their licenses when their students don’t meet standards. That would lead to a huge influx of applicants clamoring to work in those schools where test scores seem to be terminally low.
Alexander,
Somehow I missed your last post. The answer to your question is I found the study online, don’t remember the origin, and questioned the source at the time I read it, which is why I stated that the “study could be flawed.” I didn’t dig deeper. ASCD is very likely a more reliable source, especially when looking at meta-analysis as opposed to a single study.
I was encouraging folks to question their assumptions. It stings a little when someone like myself invests in advanced degrees specifically to improve my practice only to be told I wasted my money. There is little doubt that those degrees improved my knowledge, skills and effectiveness, but I’m no longer a teacher, so I don’t have data to prove it. At any rate, you have to figure that those who pursued advanced degrees specifically because they were promised more pay for their effort and investment are going to be disappointed to hear that others want to take that away from them based on measures that very possibly could be flawed or unjust.
Hi Kevin,
I would completely agree that targeted advanced degrees make sense for many teachers; it is the general policy that an advanced degree in virtually any subject should apply to all teachers in a district that makes no sense (and treats teachers like indistinguishable widgets).
I find that this sort of “one-size-fits-all” approach has exactly the backlash you mention. The degrees that you invested in may have had all sorts of benefits, but teachers for whom this is the right approach are tarred with the same brush as those for whom an advanced degree adds little value besides a salary bump (and it distorts the motivation). It’s a shame for exactly the reasons you mention.
Extra pay for advanced degrees, as well as for attending workshops, conferences, etc. has become, to a certain extent, a way to compensate for low pay. I have looked at other professions, law, medicine, and I am sure they do not increase a practitioner’s salary for more education or attending a conference on a new medial protocol. I’d be more inclined to use the $8.6 billion that Alex said we put towards teachers with maters and just build it into teacher salaries. Staying current with education practice should be an expectation, an expectation supported by districts, and not an option incentivized with increased pay.
I think the trick here is to apply those dollars to differentiated pay in some meaningful way other than a one-size-fits-all advanced degree. I applaud the idea that teachers receive more pay for increased pursuit of their craft, but this sort of blanket district/union policy makes a mockery of the concept. I would greatly prefer these dollars to be reviewed and exercised at the individual school level with some substantial bar for both application and award.
As long we maintain a compensation arrangement that fails to differentiate between teachers, it will be harder to argue that those who are truly exemplary in their craft should receive more pay. And clearly they should.
A doctor who studies more and specializes doesn’t get paid more? Others in the medical field get paid more for additional study too. Nurse Practitioners get more than RNs, for example.
Agents who study and become brokers get paid more (at least in terms of base pay). Pilots who get checked out on larger, more complicated aircraft get paid more. Actuaries study and pass tests to get paid more. I can think of many more examples of professionals who attain additional knowledge and skills and get additional salary. The difference is that it usually results in a promotion or at least changing jobs. There is no analogous career path in teaching unless you’re willing to leave the classroom and I favor not encouraging teachers to move in order to make more money. If they’re good, we want them to stay put.
I think it would be a real mistake just to inflate everyone’s salary. It’s not that I would object to some across the board raise but knowledge and skills do matter and there needs to be some linkage to pay. If you can come up with a usable career ladder to accomplish that, so much the better but since we don’t have such a thing, rewarding a professional cycle of study, demonstrate, reflect as a way to advance is the best idea I’ve come across so far.
Also, I don’t really think “staying current” is the same thing as improving your practice. Reading journals and knowing what’s going on is not the same thing as trying new things, tweaking them, and making them your own.
I’d rather work with someone who read just one article this year and put its ideas into practice than someone who reads all the important journals every month and does the same thing s/he did last year.
Jeff, we don’t seperate teachers based on specialization. That’s one of my points. It is important to note,as you do, that other professionals who increase their training move on to other positions or jobs. For the most part this is not true for educators. How can we identify the teacher that read the one article and applied this to his class versus having just read the article, or attended a conference, or obatined an adavnced degree?
I am not suggesting an across the board application of the $8 billion. I’d like to see Alex’s approach, one that segregates teachers based on something other than a one-size-fits-all approach.
In DPS, we do separate teachers by specialization. ProComp provides for additional money to math and special ed teachers, among others. I know that’s not how most districts work but we have shown that it is possible and it makes enough sense to teachers that they were willing to ratify the contract change making it possible.
I should say, if this were the only thing ProComp did, I seriously doubt it would have passed. We provided a balanced range of options so everyone not on the salary schedule had access to some way to improve their pay by doing something of value. We did not intend for those increases to happen automatically.
And it’s true that it does still recognize advanced degrees. I believed then and still do the whole deal would have been a non-starter if we had not left that alone. I honestly have my doubts about getting past it now, regardless of the evidence. Politics and policy are full of compromise and often seem only loosely grounded in reality. Unfortunately, that’s how things get done (or not).
The Professional Development Unit could provide the way to tell the difference between a teacher who is just reading and one who is doing new and better things. The demonstrate part of the study-demonstrate-reflect cycle ought to make the difference pretty evident.
I am not really satisfied with how that element has worked out so far. Partly the problem has been in teaching a bureaucracy new tricks and partly it has been in overcoming the take-classes-to-get-paid idea that was baked into the traditional salary schedule. This idea affects thinking on both sides of labor/management. And I’ll admit, it seems like one more thing to do for already busy teachers. Even though taking classes is also one more thing to do, this feels different somehow.
It’s clear to me now that ProComp alone is not enough. I’ve always known the systems triggering pay (like objective setting or evaluation) are important and now I think creating a different management structure and an intentional culture are also necessary. That belief has informed my contribution to founding the Denver Green School. Once it’s been up and running for 5 years (like ProComp has now), I’ll let you know if we’re any closer to solving our problems.
Another thing that hasn’t been mentioned about raises for advanced degrees is that in many districts they never fully pay for themselves. For example, my masters degree earned me an annual raise between $500 and $600 dollars. My “second masters” got me to MA+40 with another $500 or so for each 10 credits above my first masters. It’s kind of a joke when you consider a typical three-credit course costs over $500. The district never fully paid me back for the investment, so the way I look at it, teachers don’t really get a raise so much as a promise of some measly financial assistance down the road for pursuing additional education. It’s kind of a nonissue in my mind. Would investing in targeted PD be a better investment for school districts? Maybe. Maybe not.
We’ll have to disagree on how to do math here. As a local example: the current DCTA Salary Schedule, for a 3rd year teacher, has a difference between a BA and an MA of $4,175 in base pay annually. I won’t NPV this back, but with simple math, over 10 years that is an additional $41,750; over 25 years it is $104,375.
The financial incentive to get an MA degree – regardless of its impact on an individual’s teachers craft – is overwhelming.