Should a master's degree be required for teachers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public school teachers in Connecticut, Maryland and New York are required to have masters' degrees. Has requiring the masters' improved teaching? Should other states follow suit?

MCPS is having to bring in teachers from the Philippines under the pretense of a cultural exchange and you want to raise the bar for hiring? There is already a disconnect between pay and education and you want to raise the education bar higher?

The OP didn’t say that was their preference.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely, if there is a teacher shortage, we should definitely make it more difficult for people to enter the field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all- not one teacher should major in Education as an undergraduate. It is a giant waste of time and money. Teachers should major in a liberal arts major of some sort (broad span of humanities, literature, history, econ) and then, after graduation do the 15 credits or a masters in education to receive accreditation. Make sure that includes plenty of in classroom practicum.

The word is pedagogy. If you can’t use that word and instead use words like “practicum” you really shouldn’t expressing an opinion on this. At all. Take a seat. [/quote

The grammar is sloppy but practicum is fine there. Relax.

-Teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Considering there is a teacher shortage, no. Adding this requirement would causes problems for school districts. Teachers with masters should get paid more.

They do.

Not in Baltimore City they don’t.

Nor should they. Baltimore kids are failing basic math

[Anonymous]

I have liked all my kids' teachers who have had masters degrees and have found that it often reflects a genuine interest in learning more about teaching and becoming a more effective teacher.

On the other hand I am just really wary of this trend towards requiring everyone to have like 6-10 years of higher education before they can have a decent job. Especially at a time when higher education costs are offensively high.

I think rather than requiring a masters degree we should have more programs that enable teachers to obtain masters degrees or even just other advanced certificates in teaching for free or very low cost and then offering financial incentives for people who pursue this additional knowledge and training. Carrots not sticks.

If you don't address the education cost issues we just turn teaching into yet another profession that is inaccessible to people who don't grow up at least middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, it should not be required. They should require IQ testing for teachers. IQ is the number one predictor of job performance and a more useful screening criteria than requiring a masters degree.

I don't support IQ testing but I think there is a better argument for more rigorous certification process than for requiring an additional degree.

Requiring additional degrees just winds up being a boondoggle for colleges. A bunch of colleges will just offer a 5 year BA+masters for teachers and get an extra year of tuition out of students. Or they'll offer "expedited" masters for current teachers who need to meet the requirement and it will just be a way to squeeze mid-career teachers for money (whether it comes from the teachers or a grant program set up to help teachers meet the requirement).

I am so tired of people who think the answer to everything is to up the educational requirements for jobs. Credentialism is not the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have liked all my kids' teachers who have had masters degrees and have found that it often reflects a genuine interest in learning more about teaching and becoming a more effective teacher.

On the other hand I am just really wary of this trend towards requiring everyone to have like 6-10 years of higher education before they can have a decent job. Especially at a time when higher education costs are offensively high.

I think rather than requiring a masters degree we should have more programs that enable teachers to obtain masters degrees or even just other advanced certificates in teaching for free or very low cost and then offering financial incentives for people who pursue this additional knowledge and training. Carrots not sticks.

If you don't address the education cost issues we just turn teaching into yet another profession that is inaccessible to people who don't grow up at least middle class.

+1. Any extra requirements should focus on helping people to become good teachers. For teaching advanced high school classes, it would help if teachers have an advanced degree in the subject.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For certain subjects like high school math and sciences, yes.

For self contained special education, also yes.

Curious why you think this. In the past I’ve considered switching to teaching high school physics or math. I do not have a master’s degree though, and I am not going to pay to get one to teach when I have been an engineer for decades.

DP here. Because it would provide a higher level of understanding of the subject (and as someone who has a STEM masters, it made a big difference in understanding for me).
Maybe it doesn’t matter for the PP who already has years of work experience, but it could make a difference for a new grad.

[Anonymous]

I would support giving tuition benefits for teachers that pursue masters degree or higher. In exchange for their committent to stay with the school system for x amount of years.

[Anonymous]

It should not be IQ testing. It should not be whether you're a tiger mom or not.

There are many dimensions to being a good teacher, and how important they all are depend on the setting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For certain subjects like high school math and sciences, yes.

For self contained special education, also yes.

Curious why you think this. In the past I’ve considered switching to teaching high school physics or math. I do not have a master’s degree though, and I am not going to pay to get one to teach when I have been an engineer for decades.

DP here. Because it would provide a higher level of understanding of the subject (and as someone who has a STEM masters, it made a big difference in understanding for me).
Maybe it doesn’t matter for the PP who already has years of work experience, but it could make a difference for a new grad.

Maybe for a new grad, sure. But I can (almost) guarantee that anyone who has actually been out implementing the math/physics/chemistry that they learned in school while learning even more on the job in the “real world” has a much better understanding of that material than someone who has been in classrooms from 5-25. Even if the first person only has a Bachelor’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Considering there is a teacher shortage, no. Adding this requirement would causes problems for school districts. Teachers with masters should get paid more.

They do.

Not in Baltimore City they don’t.

Nor should they. Baltimore kids are failing basic math

Because they keep passing them along over the objections of their teachers.

[Anonymous]

I completed an M.Ed over a decade ago. It did not make me a good teacher. Honing my people skills made me a better teacher. Working on personal boundaries and translating that into my work with students made me a better teacher. Working with administrators who shared and upheld my values (physical and psychological safety in the classroom, fairness) helped me to be a better teacher. Having years and years to observe kids and see their common misconceptions and stumbling blocks helped me to be a better teacher. Working to become the most patient person I could stand to be helped me become a better teacher. I have no idea how you teach these soft skills. I wish we gave more teachers reasonable pay and reasonable schedules so that they could afford to take care of themselves better and grow into the role over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Public school teachers in Connecticut, Maryland and New York are required to have masters' degrees. Has requiring the masters' improved teaching? Should other states follow suit?

Have you seen the pay for teachers up north.....other states should follow suit on that.

[Anonymous]

I think it's worth the Praxis setting the floor: below this point, you are too dumb to be a teacher or at least too inept to study hard enough to pass not particularly difficult exams.

As far as master's degrees go, the science is as clear as any social sciences study can be, that they're generally between useless and actively harmful for student performance. Shamelessly cribbing from some earlier posts I made on DCUM the last time the subject came up, here are a few of the many studies:

"How and Why Do Teacher Credentials Matter for Student Achievement? " which looks at a massive dataset of North Carolina students and teachers from third to eighth grade.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w12828/w12828.pdf

See section starting page 32

"Graduate degrees
One of the most counterintuitive findings to emerge from the basic models is the
small or negative effects of having a graduate degree. Most of those degrees are master’s
degrees that generate higher salaries for teachers. A negative coefficient would suggest
that having such a degree is not associated with higher achievement. Thus, if the goal of
the salary structure were to provide incentives for teachers to improve their teaching, the higher pay for master’s degrees would appear to be money that is not well spent, except to the extent that the option of getting a master’s degree keeps effective experienced teachers in the profession..."

The paper goes on to say that they think that master's degrees have no effect, and that the negative trend is either due to selection effects or small sample sizes.

Here's another one:

"It's easier to pick a good teacher than to train one: Familiar and new results on the correlates of teacher effectiveness"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775710001755

"Neither holding a college major in education nor acquiring a master's degree is correlated with elementary and middle school teaching effectiveness, regardless of the university at which the degree was earned. Teachers generally do become more effective with a few years of teaching experience, but we also find evidence that teachers may become less effective with experience, particularly later in their careers. These and other findings with respect to the correlates of teacher effectiveness are obtained from estimations using value-added models that control for student characteristics as well as school and (where appropriate teacher) fixed effects in order to measure teacher effectiveness in reading and math for Florida students in fourth through eighth grades for eight school years, 2001–2002 through 2008–2009."