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I agree with your first part that a Masters in Education is a hassle to get, even if you are currently a teacher during the day plugging away at night school to

I agree with your first part that a Masters in Education is a hassle to get, even if you are currently a teacher during the day plugging away at night school to get the degree. It's a lot of sunk time (and money if you don't have it paid for somehow). I'll disagree that it's any benefit to job performance. Any evidence that it is indicative of other job qualifications is very limited. It's telling that the first page of google results for "benefits of a masters degree in education" are mostly about how it can improve the teacher's salary, not how it makes one a better teacher. Master's degrees for other liberal arts degrees don't bring any salary boost.

sanderjd 12y ago
I didn't make that point at all. I really have no clue whether the degree has an impact on job performance. All I meant to say is that many teachers are required to get it to progress in their careers and that it is expensive to do so without much future compensation for that expense relative to other degrees.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Where are teachers required to have that masters?
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    Yeah, I figured I'd be (rightly) called out on that - I don't know of anywhere that teachers are required to get the degree, but I know teachers (in Colorado) whose career progressions are limited early on without it (hence "required ... to progress in their careers").
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Do we know if the median teacher also has a masters? I know what my kids teachers make (significantly more), so wouldn't be surprised to learn that 70k is reachable without the degree. 70k is significantly above the US median salary. FWIW: My mom was (until a couple years ago) a CPS teacher with a Masters and a focus on BD/LD teaching; she has strong feelings about this stuff, but I think I might disagree with a lot of them.
      - sanderjd 12y ago
        To change tack a bit, because I don't have data to answer your question: Am I meant to think that 70k is a really high median salary for the teaching profession? Because I really don't - it seems really low for such an important profession. Especially now that so much teaching at the college level is done by similarly low-paid adjuncts, I wonder, why does it seem like our society doesn't think teaching should be an attractive employment choice for the smart, talented, and well-educated among us?
        tptacek 12y ago
        Well, ~70k is ~20k higher than the median salary; in other words, an entire full-time minimum wage salary higher. That 70k salary comes with a 3-month break and (much more importantly) a defined-benefit pension plan. Relative to investment bankers, teachers are not highly paid. But relative to the economy and, in particular, to supply/demand, they have what seems to be a pretty solid deal.
        sanderjd 12y ago
        I don't think either minimum wage workers or investment bankers are the proper comparison. I think we should be talking about professionals like doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other businesspeople; those are the professions that teaching competes (largely unsuccessfully) with for talent.
        tptacek 12y ago
        Ok, let's make that comparison: a CPS teacher makes 70k, and teachers have low single-digit unemployment and defined-benefit pensions. Lawyers, on the other hand, make a median 110k, but don't have a 3 month vacation, don't as a rule have defined-benefit pensions, and have ~12%(!) unemployment. A lawyer is also required to shoulder an average of 85k of postgraduate education to enter the field; a high school teacher can start with a bachelors. Unemployment rates for teachers are projected to fall. The unemployment picture for lawyers is bleak, due to the slow-motion collapse of biglaw.
- danielweber 12y ago
  I read "most earners of masters degrees can expect to enter fields with significantly higher salaries, especially later in their careers" as "people with masters degrees make a lot of money, so we should people with a masters of education to also have high earning potential." (That may not be what you said; I'm just saying how I read it to clarify discussion.) I should not have implied that you said it indicated job performance; that was the wrong place for me to challenge your statement (as I read it). Instead, I will say that it's not proper to treat a masters in education as giving the same signal as a masters in other fields.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

sanderjd 12y ago

I didn't make that point at all. I really have no clue whether the degree has an impact on job performance. All I meant to say is that many teachers are required to get it to progress in their careers and that it is expensive to do so without much future compensation for that expense relative to other degrees.

tptacek 12y ago
Where are teachers required to have that masters?
- sanderjd 12y ago
  Yeah, I figured I'd be (rightly) called out on that - I don't know of anywhere that teachers are required to get the degree, but I know teachers (in Colorado) whose career progressions are limited early on without it (hence "required ... to progress in their careers").
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Do we know if the median teacher also has a masters? I know what my kids teachers make (significantly more), so wouldn't be surprised to learn that 70k is reachable without the degree. 70k is significantly above the US median salary. FWIW: My mom was (until a couple years ago) a CPS teacher with a Masters and a focus on BD/LD teaching; she has strong feelings about this stuff, but I think I might disagree with a lot of them.
    - sanderjd 12y ago
      To change tack a bit, because I don't have data to answer your question: Am I meant to think that 70k is a really high median salary for the teaching profession? Because I really don't - it seems really low for such an important profession. Especially now that so much teaching at the college level is done by similarly low-paid adjuncts, I wonder, why does it seem like our society doesn't think teaching should be an attractive employment choice for the smart, talented, and well-educated among us?
      - tptacek 12y ago
        Well, ~70k is ~20k higher than the median salary; in other words, an entire full-time minimum wage salary higher. That 70k salary comes with a 3-month break and (much more importantly) a defined-benefit pension plan. Relative to investment bankers, teachers are not highly paid. But relative to the economy and, in particular, to supply/demand, they have what seems to be a pretty solid deal.
        sanderjd 12y ago
        I don't think either minimum wage workers or investment bankers are the proper comparison. I think we should be talking about professionals like doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other businesspeople; those are the professions that teaching competes (largely unsuccessfully) with for talent.
        tptacek 12y ago
        Ok, let's make that comparison: a CPS teacher makes 70k, and teachers have low single-digit unemployment and defined-benefit pensions. Lawyers, on the other hand, make a median 110k, but don't have a 3 month vacation, don't as a rule have defined-benefit pensions, and have ~12%(!) unemployment. A lawyer is also required to shoulder an average of 85k of postgraduate education to enter the field; a high school teacher can start with a bachelors. Unemployment rates for teachers are projected to fall. The unemployment picture for lawyers is bleak, due to the slow-motion collapse of biglaw.
danielweber 12y ago
I read "most earners of masters degrees can expect to enter fields with significantly higher salaries, especially later in their careers" as "people with masters degrees make a lot of money, so we should people with a masters of education to also have high earning potential." (That may not be what you said; I'm just saying how I read it to clarify discussion.) I should not have implied that you said it indicated job performance; that was the wrong place for me to challenge your statement (as I read it). Instead, I will say that it's not proper to treat a masters in education as giving the same signal as a masters in other fields.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]