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August 18, 2009

Do Teachers Need Education Degrees?

New York Times via a Doug Newman email:

In a Room for Debate forum in June on the value of liberal arts master's degrees, one group of readers -- teachers and education administrators -- generally agreed a higher degree was well worth the investment. They pointed out that pay and promotion in public schools were tied to the accumulation of such credentials and credits, specifically from colleges of education.

But current teacher training has a large chorus of critics, including prominent professors in education schools themselves. For example, the director of teacher education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Katherine Merseth, told a conference in March that of the nation's 1,300 graduate teacher training programs, only about 100 were doing a competent job and "the others could be shut down tomorrow." And Obama administration officials support a shift away from using master's degrees for pay raises, and a shift toward compensating teachers based on children's performance.

Should the public schools reduce the weight they give to education school credentials in pay and promotion decisions? Is this happening already, and, if so, what is replacing the traditional system for compensating teachers?

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 18, 2009 1:55 AM
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