It would seem that the "highest" certification should be pegged to a given teacher being the considered among the "most" effective.

We in America have become cuckoo. Why do you need a master's degree in education to teach KG or lower and middle school students? Are these teachers expected to educate lower and middle school students with college level education? Let us take the case of a law school or a medical school, where most of the courses could be taught with a first level bachelor's degree in law or a four-year MD degree. In fact, even Ph.D. students could be supervised by professors with the first level degrees.

When money was plenty (which we used to collect by exploiting and plundering poor nations under various kinds of devices and schemes) we could throw the money away freely. Easy come, easy go. Auto workers who hardly could fit some screws and nuts, with a screw driver, fancied themselves to be master mechanics, and used to demand and get salaries that even Ph.Ds (a total of 8 to 10 years of education at college level) in various engineering and scientific fields, could not make.

We should institute some drastic reforms here. To teach pre-kg, kg, and 1 to 5 grades, a high school diploma with some training (of no more than six months) in teaching techniques should be more than enough. For grades 6 to 8, a community college degree (two years of college) should be adequate. May be for grades 9 to 12, we may need some 4-year college degree.

Scale down drastically the salary levels also. A master's degree is over-education for high school kids. Over education is a criminal waste of valuable resources, especially of taxpayers' dollars. Hence, do away with this requirement totally. No salary increase is needed even if they acquire such degrees. The learning outcomes will remain exactly the same, no matter who is teaching.

Then spend some time and money investigating other professions. Maybe bankers and CEOS do not need multiple degrees either. It doesn't seem that the MBA from Harvard or other elite institutions is churning out honest-minded, non-corrupt bankers, traders, etc...Maybe we shoud start reforming Wall street and open some turnaround banks.

We want our teachers to be knowledgeable and informed, but we don't want them to be paid for their education and expertise. Give me another profession where we would apply this logic to: doctors? Lawyers? Engineers? Nurses?

This all out attack on teachers is going to backfire eventually. Years ahead you will be left with only newbies and the TFA self appointed elites who leave every 2-5 years, but isn't that really the purpose of these "studies".... Deprofessionalize teaching, create a cheap labor force of at will employees and save money. Like the savings would really go directly to the kids...yeah, that's always their concerns when they raise the salaries for administrator and create more and more consultant positions...the ones who never work with kids but somehow become the experts on education.

Wake up parents! You are being played.

This is giant scam being perpetrated on the taxpayers. If taxpayers knew what goes on inside college and university education classes and how devoid they are of substance, they would be enraged. Read Rita Kramer's estimable "Ed School Follies" for some stunning insights into teacher education in the United States. The fact is, teacher education is suffused with the Progressivist ideology that stripped education of the core content students need to succeed. Higher order thinking must be based on a core of substantive subject content as cognitive psychologists readily admit. The poor results of our education system are a direct result of these bankrupt educational theories which emerged in the 1920s and metacisized in the 1960s. A Master's degree simply provides more of the same. It will have as much impact on teacher preparedness as head start for pre-schoolers, which is simply starts children out earlier and then thrusts them into the already dysfunctional educational establishment. It's why any gains from head start are quickly dissipated as the HHS's study has documented.

The truth is, so much of our taxes go to support bankrupt ideas perpetrated by the terachers' unions: lower class sizes, teacher tenure, and a proliferation of unnecessary electives that constitute 60% of our high school curricula. Our property taxes are double what they should be because teacher unions have driven the agenda and taxpayers are not paying attention. In suich an environment, the special intetests win out. They are simply hiding behind the students to advancve their own selfish agenda.

There are 4 levels of increase beyond the master's.
Most districts have 14 steps and 6 levels.

It is the step increases that are insidious since they are automatic.
In our town step 14 teachers account for roughly half the teacher population and they all make over 80K, some over 100K.

A teacher should be required to earn increases through proven performance, not just from degrees and time on the job.

It is clear that many teachers are underperforming.
We must figure out how to make the education system more cost effective.

Most teachers work very hard. And guess what? They also work during the summer to prepare for the school year. Like me (except when I'm on here...). And know what else? Most districts don't offer tuition reimbursement.

That being said, teachers (such as myself) must be held accountable for our performance (or lack thereof).

People that go into teaching because they think it'll be easy, they'll have summers off, every afternoon off, etc. - they don't last. In fact, many teachers do quit after 5 years. It is a high stress job. Try it yourself. But do it to make a positive difference.

The real scandal is how the deregulation of the financial industry has and continues to bankrupt our country. Think you're upset about the "outlandish" pensions garnered by public servants, read about the LIBOR scandal. But bankers are job creators, right?

Where else but in the sinecure, union-protected, tenure-protected world of teachers could such nonsense occur? Answer: Nowhere.

Think of the absurdity of granting automatic step increases or purported "proficiency" increases ("Gee, I got a Master's degree - I must be more proficient...") to people who took the least-challenging path to a college degree amd who are held minimally accountable in the workplace?

What other "profession" (and I use that word in it's loosest of all possible meanings...) protects its members regardless of performance and results? Answer: None.

If you want to improve the caliber of students entering this so-called 'profession' and the caliber of those who work in it, get rid of the Democrat-controlled unions and let the free market prevail. Good teachers (good performers...) will thrive and prosper while marginal and poor teachers will be ultimately winnowed and separated toward careers that are better suit their skills and interests.

The charade of the teachers being part of a profesional society is one of the cruelest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American public and its taxpayers. Unionization of teachers is 100.00% about money and politics and NOTHING more.

Fact: If teachers didn't pay dues that were then funneled to the Democrat party coffers, those same politicians wouldn't care a whit about them.

Get rid of the unions and the quality of clasroom instruction will go up. It's that simple.

Q: Where would Democrat politicians be without teacher's unions and trial lawyers?

A: Working for a living.

pmdlebiologist said:
Take your conspiracy theories back to the drawing board and critical assess them."

What institution of higher education did you attend? It's "critically assess them." An adverb is required to modify the verb assess.

Thank you for making my point. Our education system cannot even teach basic grammar anymore. Perhaps if the state or district offered you tuition reimbursement, you might go back and take a course in the English language.

For those not part of the education lobby, read E.D. Hirsch ("Cultural Literacy," among others) for an exhaustive analysis of the effects Progressive education theories have had on the substantive content of our elementary and seconday educational curricula. Then, you will understand why Governor Malloy's "reforms" will have no effect on educational outcomes.

Well a masters online or a daily one should increase your pay size otherwise why do it?