The supplement North Carolina teachers get for advanced degrees would disappear for teachers who earn those degrees in the future, according to House and Senate budget plans.
Contrary to rumors, those proposals wouldn't strip pay from teachers who have already earned the supplement. According to an N.C. Association of Educators summary of how the budget plans would affect teachers, anyone who gets the extra pay in 2013-14 would be grandfathered into the existing pay scale. Under the 2012-13 pay scale, a teacher with 10 years' experience and a bachelor's degree gets $37,110, while a master's degree adds another $3,710 to the annual salary (local supplements may push that higher). Neither proposal eliminates the additional pay for National Board Certification.
A petition on Change.org created by Bobby Padgett of Gastonia urges legislators to protect pay for advanced degrees as they work toward a final budget this summer. "This is a particular slap in the face to all NC educators who are in the middle of a master's program and cannot complete it by this arbitrary deadline," the petition says. It had more than 1,000 electronic signatures as of Wednesday.
"Why wouldn't you want to give an incentive to the people you trust to educate your children to continue educating themselves?" wrote signer Gabriel Cohn of Davidson, a teacher who doesn't have an advanced degree.
"It's not just about the money; it's about valuing education," wrote Brittany Stone of Charlotte. "Eliminating master's pay is just another of the myriad ways in which North Carolina is devaluing education and educators."
Meanwhile, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Superintendent Heath Morrison said Wednesday that district officials will keep lobbying for an employee raise in 2013-14, even though neither the House nor the Senate budget calls for one. He said studies that rank North Carolina as low as 48th in the nation in teacher pay are cause for alarm: "It is going to be very hard to make the case for quality teachers to come and stay in North Carolina."
This week Gov. Pat McCrory charged his education cabinet with creating a plan to boost pay for good teachers, along with other strategies for improving public education. Their plan is due in time to be presented to the legislature in 2014.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Taking away master's pay for teachers
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49 comments:
About as dumb of an idea as they come....
Eliminating a 10% incentive on a base already below $50k for the ones we trust our children's minds to is the most ridiculous concept I've heard in a long time. How soon are elections again?
Do the Republicans not realize that they are trying to make the education the only profession that does not reward advanced education?
The general assembly honestly wants me to put my child's education in the hands of someone who gets payed less than a mechanic and does not have a masters degree.
7:52am: Neither of the last two industries I've worked in has paid me any more for having or getting a Master's Degree.
Anon 8:06, The type of advanced education is based on the industry and is necessarily a Master's Degree. If your a college professor it would be Doctorate, if your a restaurant worker it would be a ServeSafe Certification.
8:11am. I completely agree. I assume you meant "not necessarily". I was just reacting to 7:52 who said "education is the only industry that does not reward advanced education". That is not true.
I'm all for getting an advanced degree and furthering one's education. And an employer should pay more for the degree if the position requires the advanced degree. But, if the position does not require it, then the employer is much less likely to pay more for it. Should a first-grade teacher be paid more for having a doctorate in, say, history, even though they are teaching a first-grade curriculum. I think it would be great if everyone who got an advanced degree automatically received more money, but it doesn't often work out that way...at least in my observation.
They have taken away the ABC Bonus money and NEVER PAID IT OUT AS PROMISED THE LAST YEAR.
Taken away my Vision Benefits
Taken away my Dental Benefits
Reduced my Health Benefits (70/30)
Froze my salary for 5 years
Why should I feel any disgust for the elimination of my higher degree of learning? They have treated me like a rented mule. Most teachers now are just zombies when it comes to their compensation and benefits from CMS and NC.
I'm a teacher in CMS, and for the life of me can't understand why whenever there's a budget shortfall, it comes down on teachers. What about the 1/2 of all CMS employees that NEVER SEE CHILDREN?? I have a Masters degree from a top 5 education school, and my students have absolutely valued from my education. I will say, not all Masters degrees are created equal...I took a graduate class online from UNCC this year, and there was no comparison in rigor or content to my courses from a more competitive university.
What we have been witnessing in the last 20 years is the "de-professionalization" of teaching through concerted political doctrine implementation repeated over and over through media and less than neutral research reports to the extent that the genera public believes that teaching is just like any other "industry" job. In other words, teaching is no longer seen as a profession like a lawyer etc but as akin to a fast food worker. Studies such as those conducted by Darling-Hammond which point out that the majority of teachers work as many hours in 10 months than other professions do in 12 are not publicized since they dispel the propaganda that teachers work 6 hour days for ten months. Researcher after researcher point out that a highly qualified teacher positively affects student achievement with continued teacher education in content and pedagogy being integral parts of this process. To give a real world example on how teaching statistics can be skewed, I had 28 students show up on my attendance records and course rolls daily one year yet I never saw nor even knew what these students looked like. The reason that I was given for being the TOR (teacher of record) is that the teacher of these students needed a highly qualified content resource. This was reiterated to me even after I questioned this methodology on the district level. These students by being on my roll skewed the attendance percentages and demographic data for course enrollment since the 28 were not in the same level course in reality as they were listed. Moreover, researchers using attendance and/or course enrollment as a base for teacher efficacy will incorrectly link me with these students' academic achievement. I do have advanced academic degrees by the way and so this skewed quantitative data gives a false impression of the worthiness of advanced degrees as well. According to Education Week, there is a court case in Florida over this same issue in which certain teachers at certain times are linked to students in which they had no roll in teaching. Thus as I finish one more, and probably my last, advanced degree by 2015 should I sue the state legislators who are using faulty data such as described above to eliminate a higher pay rate? Interesting isn't it?
8:48am. Specifically how has the Master's degree provided additional value for your students? Is the curriculum more rigorous in your class than in your Bachelor's degree counterpart's? Does your additional training allow you to better connect with your students, so they comprehend the material more fully? Do Master's degree teachers' students score higher (all other things being equal)?
Answers to these, and other questions, are the type that need to be sold to those with the pursestrings. Show how the higher degree adds specific value. If the answers to the above are conclusively "Yes", then a Master's Degree should be required for all and then paid accordingly.
Anon 8:48
Administators in CMS have received BONUS money these past 5 years. That is why they dont want you to FAIL any students. What a major series of lies to their employees and the public.
This goes completely against what the lying Govenator says today in the CO. He wants to increase what teachers are making. If Mccrory had a clue he would be dangerous. He is in way over his head similar to Heath Morrison so neither is going to take it to another level.
So we strive hard to be 48th in the country is the marketing plan North Carolina is going for politicians?
And Heath Morrison makes HOW MUCH?
It's now obvious since the state of NC is doing this with teachers, it has done the same thing in the past when hiring people to build roads, highways and bridges.
We have some of the worst designed roads and interchanges in the country.
This tells me none of the morons who built them have an engineering degree.
Ann,
Can you please do something about the roads for Wiley?
That would be great!
Start with the western leg of the 485/85 southbound interchange..
I guess the legislature is using the adage "it isn't rocket science to:"
A - be a teacher
B - be an engineer
C - be a Governor
D - get elected to the NC Legislature
Lets stick to education in the blog as to many issue with that to handle. If you want to get into roads and taxes Ann would have to get 6 more servers for her site. She might even have to hire that idiot Scott Murri from Atlanta to help her with her growing technology needs. Oh forget that he would be of no use just like his service to CMS under PG for so many years !
8:8, there are 2 reasons teachers are getting the short end of the stick these days. One, Bill Gates and Broad have convinced the politicians that teachers need to be rewarded for their students pass rate via some measure. (And that is entirely another issue I will not address here). Thus for almost a decade now, the mantra out of Washington pushes that theme. It pushed this effort onto NC because Gov Bev took the race to the top money and another federal grant that mandates we, in our case the NC Legislature, State Board of Education and the Department of Public Instruction must come up with these aspects. SO that is the political slant to it.
The economic slant to it is that NC is in horrible financial condition. We owe the federal government heavily for the extended unemployment benefits. NC had yet to figure out it economic future with the demise of the textile industry, the furniture industry and the tobacco industry. The first two were accelerated by the federal government creating all these foreign aid programs to bring industry and a better way of life to third world countries.
So in the NC budget, the largest line item the legislature can do much about is education, both K-12 and higher.
I agree with you about needing to keep the incentive for teachers to do advanced development in their field. In CMS, less than half of its employees are teachers. That says a lot to me. When I see schools like Windsor Park and others do what they do without assistance from CMS programs like WSS and Strategic Staffing, I am certain those programs have outlived their effectiveness. That money should be more equally spread around the school system among the teachers.
The federal programs that give CMS that money have their own albatross. Audits in other school systems indicate it takes 2 dollars to administer every 1 dollar in federal money the system gets. CMS has refused to do any audits to determine effectiveness of any of its programs. Much like how we know the school cafeterias rely heavily on the fraud in the school lunch program to make money. And to top that off, they do little to try to recover the unpaid lunch money they are owed.
I do not see much hope for our teachers and our public education system as the minorities and the federal government gain more and more control.
Anon 9:03:
Don't want to get too specific as it could give away my identity (crazy how paranoid we are, isn't it?). However, the students in my class made on average 2 years of growth in the 10 months I taught them. This was significantly more than the other classrooms in my grade level, and I was the only teacher with a masters degree. However, I also went to a highly ranked undergrad university and the other teachers in my grade level went to App state, UNCC, western, etc. Its probably impossible to make comparisons of just masters v. non-masters, and I don't want to degrade any of my fellow educators (regardless of degree level). I also don't think "name brand" schools are the end-all-be-all. I just want quality professionals attracted to education, and it seems like that's becoming more and more difficult.
June 20, 2013 at 12:00 PM: Thank you for your response. Your students progress could also be because you're a more effective teacher, with or without the Master's. "Correlation does not imply causation" as the saying goes. If the Master's can clearly show/cause that much improvement, then it should be a requirement for all teachers and then be paid accordingly.
12:00: If you are a much more effective teacher because of your Master's Degree, then you should be paid more for the performance in your classroom. Not just because you have a Master's Degree.
My employer does not pay me more just because I have Master's degree. However, my Master's should reflect in my higher ability and performance and that should be recognized in my pay.
As a lot of you will remember, there was a talk in CMS a couple of years ago about replacing pay for degrees and experience with a system based on performance. The thing is, I haven't seen or heard any proposals to give teachers anything new based on performance. I know there are new value-added ratings, but no money attached to them. Anyone heard of a serious move to provide any kind of new compensation? I can see how teachers would resist a take-away with nothing to offset it.
10 years experience = $37k? Only $4k more for a masters' degree? That is shocking. WOW. Is this the true value of educating the future citizens of North Carolina?
The citizens must take responsibility for the situation and elect legislators who make changes to the system; otherwise it's just talk and no action. The teachers should educate the public on the issues and help to effect the changes so badly needed.
Ann,
This past year, each LEA was charged with creating a Pay-for-Performance proposal, created by a committee of administration and teachers, suitable for their own district. I cannot speak for other districts, but the committee in my district dedicated many hours created a plan to be implemented in our district.
All of these proposals were expected to be shared with the State Superintendent and the Department of Public Instruction, providing LEA-acceptable options for any Pay-for-Performance (or Incentive-based Pay) throughout the state.
Every teacher I know is at the pool today. Sorry I'm not shedding any tears regarding their pay.
If you got in to teaching for the money, you've already shown you're not too bright, master's or not.
The best teachers are not in it for the money. If you are, find another line of work and quit the whining.
Craig, you are exactly right, though there was never any guarantee of P4P money. CMS convened a big group of educators to draw up a plan. Gaston made similar efforts, according to a front-page article in the Gaston Gazette. But the March 1 deadline rolled up ... and the state got nothing. Right before that deadline, CMS officials talked about needing more time to run the plan by teachers, but no one has seen anything since. Gaston folks didn't return my call asking what happened. I think a lot of folks have gotten skeptical if not outright cynical about all the talk without any action or money.
I taught in NC for 9 years, my last salary was 43K with local supplement and masters pay. I moved to NY and my pay jumped to 71K with an increase each semester, and my living expenses have not increased that much... As a former teacher of the year in NC, I miss my students and school, but when Duke Energy and everyone else demnands more money each year, with no increase in pay, it becomes too much! The Republican leadership OUGHT to be ashamed of themselves! I know of several GOOD teachers leaving the state this summer in search of better pay and a more public education-friendly state. As someone who was born, raised, and educated in NC, I KNOW we can DO BETTER!
Couple of quick notes:
- Some areas of CMS require a Master's Degree, such as Guidance Counselor.
- I'll reiterate the comment that most teachers and counselors do 12 months of work in their 10 months. The unpaid hours my wife has put in either after work, on weekends, or even during the summer, is staggering considering she isn't getting paid.
- Related to the above, a teacher, counselor, etc. may work multiple hours after school that they don't get paid for. However, if they have to miss, say, a couple of hours during a teacher workday, they have to record that as leave time that they then lose from their annual leave time bank.
And for Ann, something interesting to look into is that the school systems - not just CMS - give VPN access to allow teachers, counselors, etc. to dial in from home and work on school systems. For example, a guidance counselor could spend several hours working through student registrations at home or on a weekend or even, potentially, on a teacher workday. However, none of that time will be compensated because working from home doesn't count. Why give employees VPN access to get to all the systems remotely if remote work isn't compensated?
If teachers are putting in 12 months of work in 10 months, think about how much work time those of us that actually work 12 months put in, especially with a 8-5 workday. To say that teachers are the only ones that work more hours than they get paid on is ignorant. Teachers work no harder than any other profession, they just complain more.
3:24...
I work at home, on a plane, in a hotel room and I get paid the same whether I'm in my office or not.
I also officially work (get paid for) 260 days per year while a teacher officially works (gets paid for) 190 +/- days, depending on job description and state.
I don't punch a clock.
I also spent over 70 nights out of town last year away from my family and I was still paid the same.
The not getting paid while working from home falls on deaf ears here.
Wiley,
Good point. I was more addressing it from the aspect questioning teachers/counselors being underpaid for what they do and the amount of work they put in. I would hazard to guess that for the commitment and travel you are expected to have for your job, you are getting paid more than $44K a year (the $37K/10month example of a 10-year employee extrapolated out to a year).
And 3:36, I'm by no means saying they are the only profession working more hours than they are getting paid for. My point was, that for an already underpaid profession (based on degree/skill set required vs. compensation), that the extra unpaid hours worked becomes more unfair and more difficult.
In fact, I'd challenge you to find a teacher at the aforementioned 10 year level or less - without a working spouse/partner - that doesn't have a second job.
Every teacher/counselor I know does it because they love it and not for what they are being paid. Honestly, I'm surprised they don't complain more. :)
Try 22 years experience and National Board Certification = $43,000. Sad but true. I am currently in a masters program and will be in debt for $20 K with kids starting college in two years. I will be close to financial ruin if I am not paid for the masters when I graduate.
You need to shadow a teacher for a couple of Weeks......
P4P, My bet is that the superintendents around the state will figure out a way to cull off the local supplement and make it a pool of money for performance pay. Thus a good portion of the teachers will lose pay. A smaller portion will gain pay but you will have to figure if some principals will try to manipulate some parameters to keep their "buddies/sistas" covered.
I'm sure the superintendents are more than willing to cut the pay of suburban teachers to up the pot for urban teachers.
I love the teachers only work 10 months, so let's make sure they only get paid for ten months of work. I'm a teacher's daughter - master's degree mind you. First, it had nothing to do with education, but since much of the time the school system forced him to teach areas that he never trained for in the first place, it didn't really matter. Political science/social studies teacher teaching 6th grade math and reading and the schools wondered what the problem was...
Second, teachers don't work 6 hours, they don't work 8 hours, they work 10-12 hours M-F. Then they work the weekends. I'm a lawyer, and I don't work as much as my father did during the school year. I understand the idea of salaries - you work until the job is done, but the fact remains that the job isn't just the classroom. It's the papers, the clubs, the reports, the parking lot, the athletics, the school dances, the parent-teacher conferences, the simple act of making your class listen, dealing with the demands from Raleigh. As someone else mentioned the other day, teachers have to have a 100% success rate, or they are considered failures - no other profession demands that kind of perfection - not even medicine. If someone comes to the hospital with a heart attack because they have eaten McDonald's and never exercised a day in their whole life, and die, we don't blame the doctor. If a student comes in, is rude, disrespectful, doesn't learn a thing all year, the teacher is punished because that child fell behind. And then we take away the tools the teachers need to teach, including the funds to teach with, and expect them to pay for it. No other profession is expected to pay for supplies like teachers are. And don't think they just waste the summer. The teachers I know aren't at the pool today. They are in class learning more to teach to their students next year. They are working to make ends meet - at summer camps, with the same students they'll see in the fall. Where they will face bigger classes and even higher standards, standards that no one can expect them to meet, and then we wonder why they don't. And then we wonder why they quit. And for those who say they shouldn't complain - I dare you to spend a day in their shoes. Volunteer at your local school. Substitute. I bet you can't handle it.
Wee said 5:50 p.m.!
I believe the Republicans of North Carolina are demonstrating why they have only been in charge three times in this state's history.
North Carolina "The follower state" always following Florida because they have no original ideas of their own.
They need to give Administrators (Principals) the flexability to also pay according performance as opposed to only tenure or advanced degrees. There are some Master's Degrees that do not warrent any additional compensation (e.g.,some online courses) and were simply a pursued to get the additional income and not to gain new ideas or solidify teaching principles. Teachers should be rewarded for coming up with innovative ideas, creating excitment about learning, and having students show growth or continue to excel on standardized testing. I would rather a principal have the ability to reward a young energetic teacher who is challenging their students versus the long tenured teacher who is simply "experienced".
My students benefit from my master's degree because the degree content is directly related to the material I teach in class.
I was a lateral entry teacher after spending nearly 10 years in another field, and can honestly say no one works harder than dedicated educators. Yes, there are other professionals that work just as hard. In general, however, those professionals have not been subjected to the constant media and government scrutiny that the education profession has experienced over the last 10-15 years. The unending and often negative scrutiny, as well as the stagnant/decreasing compensation, are the primary reasons that new and experienced educators are rethinking their career choice.
It is a sad statement when current educators no longer encourage their students or their own children to join the profession.
I spent my first and only year at CMS this past year. Left to start a business after working with an incompetent and demeaning administration that frowned upon teacher creativity and discriminated against teachers based on their personality. They hated me despite the fact my students made the most growth of any in my grade level.
I can live with the $35K base pay, but the intolerable, hostile workforce made it impossible to stay, let alone the salary.
I have since started a business related to education in my home state and am on track to make more than my salary from last year in fewer hours of work. I'm unsure if I want to go back to the classroom because I am loving the fact I no longer have a tyrant principal who did illegal things and lied to me several times to report to.
Some teachers are grossly underpaid, and others are grossly overpaid. Some teachers truly do just sit and shop online while their students do worksheet after worksheet and continue to drop out of school. However, many others are defying every statistic and making an incredible difference for kids.
I'm a teacher in CMS and left a job working with children for $75k a year to make $38k. The previous job required a masters and was a 12 month position. If you take my current masters level teaching salary and prorate it for 12 months, its still nowhere near my previous job. Now, I knew I was taking a pay cut and did so willingly because I wanted to make a difference in the public school system. However, my personal decision certainly does not justify the low pay I receive. I work harder and longer hours during the 10 months I teach than I did in my previous job, and my students are making incredible gains.
I'm all about pay for performance if it can be done in an effective way!
I'm not a teacher, I'm a Master's prepared nurse. I feel that teachers deserve more money regardless of sn advanced degree or not, but if they take the time to go back to school to "perfect" their craft then they definitely deserve to be compensated. NONE of us would be where we are without the care and guidance we received from teachers....they taught us how to read, to write, to think, etc. What if all the truly good teachers decided to stop teaching and pursue a more lucrative career.....what would we do then? Teachers work hard..they have lives, bills, and responsibilities just like everyone else. It is so sad that we value everything else, like sports, more than the people who helped get them where they are. We spend millions on sports teams, but can't support our teachers? I don't care how good your dunk is....if it weren't for teachers guiding you through (classroom and athletic) where would you be? It is for this reason some teachers don't even care about the kids....they don't get paid. If you don't think teachers deserve more pay, I challenge you to try to home school your child for one month...let's see if you are still sane and have all your hair. This is just my opinion. I love and respect you teachers because I personally don't have the patience....I have 3 in elementary and there's no way.
I am a teacher and I was not at the pool today. I was working my summer job, the same one I work on the weekends during the school year just to make ends meet. I am currently in the middle of my masters program, which I began primarily to increase my pay since I haven't received a raise in my entire teaching career. I am going to be $10,000 in debt with no pay increase to help pay for the student loans I took out in order to become a better educator. I am not in it for the money, but you must understand that teachers too have bills to pay and families to support.
On our teacher evaluations, one of the ways to get accomplished for one of the six standards is by obtaining an advanced degree to feed their professional development, so it's ridiculous that they want to take away master level pay when it can be included in our evaluations.
I don't get paid during the summer, but often get calls to "volunteer" to go to workshops (unpaid) or seminars. And you get CEU credits for your time! Thanks for playing! And we go, because if we don't, we're "unprofessional" or "not being a team player." If you think teachers complain too much for making below the poverty line in N.C., please, go spend your own money on becoming a teacher, pay it back, and teach your own children. Then explain to them why you cant afford to take them on vacation, or wonder what you will be able to feed them after school, or how you will pay for their school supplies when you have to make sure every student in your class has school supplies. That's not my job, right? But if they fail, it's because we failed them, and didn't go that "extra mile." Which includes spending your own money on things for your students because the school cant afford to even buy books. I didn't get into the profession for the money- but I deserve to make a living wage, and my two children deserve to be provided for. You can't handle it- that's why you send them to us.
Would you rather have a Ph.D . Chemist or Biologist with experience teaching your children or a 23 yr old with 6 science classes under their belt? Do people really want their kids in classes of 35-45 kids? A student teacher ratio of 22 doesn't mean class sizes are 22. And I'm not at the pool. I'm preparing my new AP curriculum and revamping my labs to make my classes more effective. I'm trying to figure out how to best assess my students without computers or paper because there aren't enough computers, and schools nor parents can afford paper (but they can afford a smart phone with service)
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