The pay increases teachers receive for earning a master’s degree costs districts across Connecticut $239.3 million a year, according to a report released yesterday by the Washington-based Center for American Progress.
This left-leaning think tank reports that since there is little research that advanced degrees improve the teaching profession, money would be better spent paying to retain high-quality teachers or to recruit teachers for shortage areas.
Included in the state’s new education law adopted earlier this year is the requirement that teachers receive a master’s degree starting in four years before they can receive the state’s highest certification. This professional certificate is often linked to a teacher’s pay.
While assuring a steady flow of teachers into the teacher colleges with this new master’s degree requirement, efforts to overhaul the colleges fell flat.
Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.
