Why I Voted to Reject the Fact-Finder's Report [Letter]

Editor's Note: The Saucon Valley School Board voted 7-2 on Thursday to accept the report from fact-finder Rochelle K. Kaplan, Esq. The Saucon Valley Education Association—the union that represents the district's teachers—voted to reject the report. The full report is posted online on the district website.

The independent fact-finder informed the board that we must either “accept” or “reject” her report in its entirety and on an unqualified basis. I do not believe our community, as a whole, supports the terms of the contract as proposed by the fact-finder and so that was sufficient reason for me to reject it. 

I sense that the primary source of misalignment with the community continues to be the issue of graduate study, and one wonders if contract negotiations would be going on so long if the direct link between graduate study and compensation had never existed. To the best of my knowledge, Pennsylvania is not one of the 15 states required by law to pay teachers for advanced degrees. At Saucon Valley, we choose to do so. 

It should also be noted that we give teachers raises for advanced degrees and reimburse them for tuition, but teachers are not required to earn advanced degrees. A parent might ask: why does my neighbor’s child get a teacher with an advanced degree but my child does not? Where is the equity in education here? Advanced degrees should be acquired by all or none, depending on the true value of the training with respect to the educational needs of the students. 

In fact, numerous studies (1) and articles (2) from a broad range of viewpoints draw attention to the declining value of graduate courses in education and underscore the need to break the link between teacher compensation and the earning of advanced degrees. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that our nation spends $15 billion a year on salary bumps for teachers who earn master’s degrees, even though the research shows the diplomas don’t necessarily lead to higher student achievement. (3) Three years ago, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan expressed the same thoughts in a speech in which he said, “Doing more with less will likely require reshaping teacher compensation to do more to develop, support, and reward excellence and effectiveness, and less to pay people based on paper credentials.” (4) A few months ago, North Carolina became the most recent state to end its mandate of paying teachers for advanced degrees. (5)

While everyone else, it seems, is debating the pros and cons of removing the link between compensation and advanced degrees, we are still debating the duties and authority of a graduate study committee, new rules for grievances pertaining to the approval of specific courses and providers, and new limits on column movement and tuition reimbursement. Even though we are moving in the right direction, we are still ignoring the elephant in the room. It is time for the Association to examine the evidence and acknowledge the financial burdens of this outmoded practice. It is time to break the link with compensation and remove this issue from the negotiating table. 

The fact-finder’s report did not provide any evidence to show that advanced education degrees add value to the district by improving student achievement, but did find that the average cost of graduate study is $12,000 per employee per year for column movement and tuition reimbursement. Our school district must stop diverting limited resources away from the common goal of educating our students in order to fund graduate courses of unproven value.

1 “The Sheepskin Effect and Student Achievement,” Center for American Progress, July 2012. 

2 “Questioning a Degree’s Value,” Inside Higher Ed, 9 December 2010. 

3 “Pay Raises for Teachers with Master’s Under Fire,” Wall Street Journal, 4 October 2013. 

4 “The New Normal: Doing More with Less – Secretary Arne Duncan’s Remarks at the American Enterprise Institute,” 17 November 2010. 

5 “NC law that ends pay raises for teachers with master’s degrees a blow to college finances,” Inside Higher Ed, 7 August 2013. p. 2 of 2