[devildog2067]

Originally Posted by INJoker

I concede your point that the "level" of the degree does not in and of itself carry an inherent value for equal comparison.

I know people with PhDs who are stay at home moms. I know people with PhDs who drive trucks (seriously, a buddy of mine was tired of being a scientist and got a CDL and now he drives trucks for a living, and seems pretty happy). I know people with PhDs who are professors, and I know people with PhDs who are partners in consulting firms that make a couple of million dollars (or more than a couple, some of them) annually.

A degree is a minimum certification, nothing more. As someone who has several, I know better than most--at the end of the day, they're just letters after your name. They don't entitle you to anything at all, and in fact the idea that a teacher with a master's degree should automatically get paid more than a teacher with just a BA is part of what's wrong with teacher pay.

The point of the data I provided is to illustrate that a 20-year-old kid with a 2-year Associate's Degree in Nursing will make more in his/her first year of full-time employment than the average Indiana public school teacher will after his/her 20th year of service with a Bachelor's degree

So, go be a nurse.

So in the context of professional development, a Master's in Education is the next logical step up for the average teacher just as an M.B.A. would be for the average accountant or marketer.

But does the Master's in Education make the teacher a better teacher?

If so, shouldn't we be able to measure that impact?

Shouldn't a teacher with "just" a BA whose students improve more than someone with a Masters whose students don't improve get paid more? Why should the Master's degree holder get paid more just because they got a sheepskin to hang on their wall? Doesn't performance matter more than checking a box?