Malkin,

The bonus for Master’s Degrees, etc are built into individual contracts between the unions and the boards.  Our OSSTF contract allows for about $1,000/year (I don’t know if I can go into specifics on a public blog) for an MA and about $1,200 for a PHD.  I would assume the elementary teachers would have a similar pay scale - I couldn’t tell you, I’ve never seen their contract.

That being said very few teachers have them.  In our school, we have about 70 teachers - 3 of us have more than the two required degrees.  Our school is typical of the other 10 high schools in the area.  Maybe in urban centers like TO, where the competition for jobs is more fierce, there may be a greater percentage of teachers with extra degrees.  Again, sorry, I can’t tell you.

What I can say, is that most teachers don’t bother because it is not worth it - unless you go for an M.ed.  M.ed degrees you can get after 8 weeks in the summer from that college in NY State.  It costs a few thousand dollars.  I went for a real MA.  I worked at it part time for the better part of 8 years.  It cost me tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, books, travel, etc.  Any loophole the boards can find to reduce a teacher’s pay - believe me they will use.  After paying me the bonus for a couple of years, they stopped, I’ve never recouped my investment.

Teachers would much rather invest several hundred dollars for summer upgrading courses that take 4 weeks.  After three years of teaching, with the right upgrading courses, teachers can move from category 3 to category 4.  The difference on most pay grids is about $2,500/year.  That the boards can’t argue since categories are determined by the unions, and that $2,500 accrues every year for the rest of the teacher’s career.  Indeed, since the pension is based on salary earned, that difference follows the teacher to the grave. 

So, you can easily see that most teachers are really not interested in working towards extra degrees.  Even the easier M.ed is usually only done by teachers wishing to abandon the classroom for administration.

Thanks for this excellent information, Wayne. I would be interested to know your opinion of the four-week summer upgrading courses. Generally speaking, are they likely to improve teachers’ effectiveness?

Malkin,

That would be very difficult to answer.  These courses tend to be led by teachers with about 15-20 years classroom experience and they mean well.  The only ones I have attended are in my subject area.  I have seen others while in the same building.

From my experience, these courses are merely an extension of teacher’s college - with all that entails, both good and bad.  The real heart of the problem, as has been hashed out on this blog, is that no one really knows what makes a good teacher.  Therefore, these courses suffer from a real lack of focus other than curriculum.  And, after three years, most teachers should know their curriculum area.

Therefore, are they likely to improve teacher effectiveness?  Well, that would depend upon the subject and the teachers hired to conduct the training.  Some will be great, others average, and others not so good.  In other words, it’s a microcosm of our education system.

I think the above is reflective of what we see-the circuitous delivery of insight in the classroom in our obsession about training teachers in research based reading instruction is not happening because it is not even on the radar.

Dr.Keith Stanovich reflected on it years ago-in teaching they honour opinion and style-style-very important-opinion is very dangerous and needs to move to honouring research based instruction for literacy and numeracy.

I can see acquiring a Master’s degree and being rewarded for it if the employee then takes on a new role or added responsibilities, however having exactly the same job working beside folks who don’t have an advanced degree does raise the issue of what the rest of us are getting in return for the person’s additional degree.  Does that mean that the person who doesn’t have it is really not qualified to do the job or that the additional degree really isn’t needed for the job being done?

Looks like a nice but not necessary sort of deal.