Do teachers need advanced degrees? | Hacker News Reader

Do teachers need advanced degrees?

cremieux.xyz

24 pointsrenameme67 comments

Teaching salaries start at $48,112 on average. If schools want advanced degrees the industry needs to pay more, and that's beyond whatever adjustment the provide for holding an advanced degree.

this. there's almost no fiscal incentive to even BE a teacher, let alone a well-educated one.

Well, the way you get instant raises in the public school system is by completing more advanced degrees

When you overpay teachers, people who hate teaching, and hate being teachers, will become teachers for the money.

Is a good idea to select the people who hate teaching to become teachers?

Yeah, why would we pay top dollar for top talent and then hold that talent to high standards? That certainly doesn’t work in any other profession.

If you are paying top dollar for top talent, then you are not overpaying anyone.

If you can read, thank a teacher!

When you overpay CEOs, people who hate leading, and hate being CEOs, will become CEOs for the money.

Is a good idea to select the people who hate leading to become CEOs?

Yes

You say that as though it’s an option

CEO is selected by the investors for whoever will side with the investors 100% of the time over every other group including employees

What you suggest would subvert this and so it won’t and can’t happen

This was far more of an option in the 1980s and earlier; a CEO being compensated 20-30x a line employee was pretty standard around then; now it's closer to 250-300x. I think there's more optionality than we may assume, we've just left the structural incentives that drive that difference in place.

We call this new movement “involuntary CEO”. Bob you’re now it.

Absolutely dumb take. There are plenty of very bright and talented people that would have made excellent teachers but chose different career paths because - surprise surprise - the pay is better.

When you underpay teachers, people who hate teaching, and hate being teachers, will become teachers because all the people that had better options did something else.

And then you will have people who absolutely love teaching, and are willing to live in poverty to do so, speckled around that cess pool of mediocrity. It reminds me of high school actually.

That means overpayment is wrong and underpayment is wrong.

Teachers should be paid the correct amount, no more and no less.

I love how it took three comments to arrive at a tautology.

This is true of every single job.

Teachers are high in big five trait agreeableness which means they typically don't negotiate on their own behalf

Teachers usually outsource negotiations to their unions and therefore largely cannot negotiate on their own behalf, even if they wanted to.

You made an assertion that is based in fantasy, and then asked a question based on this silly assertion. Just wow.

They're already paid better than adjunct professors or grad students which is the normal career path for people with advanced degrees.

All things considered, it's much better than it's made out to be.

Teaching is pretty stable, offers pensions, unionized, yearly adjusted for CPI, opportunities to increase pay schedule + extra pay with extra curriculars / duties, lots of time off, good hours.

Don't get me wrong. There are issues and it does depend on the district (US).

Now the aides..

True. As long as we can agree that that means that tripling the current compensation is a necessity. Quadrupling it (ie. matching entry-level FANG) is not that necessary.

Btw: there is also the aspect that while children can get inspired and that is enormously motivating. Children also sabotage teaching and I've seen teachers leave because of that as well.

And where do you think that money will come from?

Most public K-12 teachers teach 9 months out of the year. So annualizing that salary gets you to $64,149. Supposing a two income household of two teachers earning that amount ($128,299), the household would be earning a good bit above the median household income of $83,730.

Now, add in the pre-tax earnings that would be necessary to emulate a teacher's risk-free pension. One would need post-tax investments which must be turned into an annuity on retirement. It's not a small sum.

"The industry", at least at a pre-university level, is entirely at the mercy of state and local governments for its budgets.

If you want schools to pay their teachers more, you have to push for higher taxes, because that's where the money for them comes from. And you have to explain to your families and friends that yes, the extra $30.45 they had to pay this year is very, very meaningful, because it lets starting teachers make enough to actually afford rent, food, and clothes all in the same year. (You probably have to explain that part ad nauseam.)

Teachers get can paid more whether you raise taxes or not. Chicago public schools runs a $700,000,000 deficit every year no sweat.

Chicago pays teachers more than any other place in the country and has close to if not the absolute worst student outcomes. Paying more doesn’t solve much

My understanding is that, these days, a lot of advanced degrees held by teachers are in Education, not say Math or History.

I’d love to see this data recut by degree type.

Edit - wow we’re talking about 50-70% of the masters being in Education, Special Education or Admin fields. (Page 14: https://mhec.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/202510-MHEC-Grad...)

This data is basically telling us nothing about the value of a topical masters degree.

I'd say that there is no such statistically significant data.

Practically nobody teaching K-12 has subject-matter masters degrees. It's just not part of the career trajectory. As unusual as a nurse having an M.A. in history or something. Yes, would occur on the margins of people changing course in life, but not the mainline.

Specifically, the question here is about the efficacy of pay-scale bumps for Masters degrees in education. To your point (and my counter-point), teachers get a substantial pay bump* if they hold a M.Ed, but no bump if they hold a masters in their teachable areas.

For persons who can afford it in the moment, taking a one year or two or three year part-time M.Ed. after getting a few years teaching experience (an entrance requirement in most M.Ed. programs) can pay for itself over the next 2-5 years, then is all surplus for the rest of the career.

* - all of the varies a bit by jurisdiction but I think this is "the general case".

My wife is a teacher. She wanted to teach history, so she had to get a history degree with a specialization in education. But there were no jobs available, so she accepted a conditional as a special education teacher. That's what drove her to get a master's degree in special ed.

While doing teaching special ed she developed a fondness for teaching math. But she isn't allowed to take on a general ed math class because she doesn't have a "math endorsement" - which would require her to go back to school again for basically another advanced degree in math. And she can't get a general ed job in history because it's too competitive and her years of experience makes her too expensive compared to fresh blood.

FYI: the author of this piece is the eugenicist Cremieux who was responsible for using hacked data to attack Zohran Mamdani for checking Black and Asian on his college application.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Lasker

What do they call this type of argument, again? Ad hominem?

If someone has a historical of unethical behaviour it's reasonable to want significantly more evidence for their claims.

Perhaps you could share what this person's history of unethical behavior is? Lasker is called a eugenicist by the GP and in the Wikipedia article, but when I read the cited sources, they look a lot more like opinion pieces pushing a viewpoint rather than hard news.

Then just show which claims need more evidence in their articles.

Are you referring to parent's or TFA's 'argument' here?

These things may differ from place to place, but in places I know most teachers get advanced degrees because that is one of the very few ways one can increase their salary. Some get in order to get promotion to higher administrative-managerial, non-teaching positions. Prospective teachers get one for increasing their prospects of getting hired. Many of them may actually not even get advanced degrees in the very subject they teach, especially if it is a harder one. They often choose fields like special education for which there exists an established industry of producing degrees in some places (moreover devaluing the degrees of the ones who actually study special education), or anything remotely relevant, but actually not. From what I briefly saw in some of the articles, the researchers don't check about specific degree field but "educational attainment" in general.

In general, quite a few people probably do not get degrees in order to get in depth knowledge on the subject they teach. This, along with other factors, makes imo the conclusions more about the current "credential" system than whether actually getting more in depth knowledge affects teaching. Of course, the educational system has a lot more problems than teachers not having master degrees in their fields, but going from anticredentialism to asserting that getting formal advanced (or even any) education in a field is useless is not imo warranted.

It's funny that this is a question when every college STEM class is taught by people who have degrees that have absolutely nothing to do with being able to teach effectively.

I think a lot of teaching jobs are like that.

If you were good at teaching STEM, I think you could probably work nearby in a STEM job for more money.

This does suppose there are good jobs in the area, which can be a bit hit or miss especially out in the sticks. Not to say one couldn't move, but moving isn't in the cards for everyone.

Not really. Public school teachers are well paid when you consider pension, tenure and low stability. Working in industry can pay more than teaching but this is not a guarantee. A public school teacher doesn’t get fired when they turn 40, or laid off in a downturn. It’s less about money and more about qualifications. having a chemistry degree is not the correct qualification to teach chemistry in a public high school. The labor market between stem practitioners and stem teachers are really not substitutes in any practical sense.

I don't know, this doesn't match my experience.

I've been multiple places were the teachers in high-mobility fields were bad because anyone good at them could move up easily. takes just one bad interaction with a superior or nagging from a spouse and poof.

This doesn't apply to people who love teaching, they're in it for different motivations.

Unfortunately and for certain.

Those who produce the materials teachers teach should have advanced degrees. Teachers should have degrees demonstrating their competence in accessing and relating to such knowledge.

Teacher experience means they have more say in their students. It's common for new teachers to be shoved into the worst schools and classes in the district. Teacher performance doesn't significantly effect student performance. Student ability and home situation are the best predictors. There are exceptionally bad and good teachers, but they are exactly that... exceptions.

Sorta related: I've often wondered why teachers have to pay for their own training, yet police and fire fighters have their training paid for by tax payers. They both provide a valuable public service. IMHO, teachers should be hired, then trained - paid for by the state, just like police and fire fighters usually are.

Such a ridiculous framing. Of course a teacher needs to provably know their subject, along with a solid practicum and a dollop of teaching theory, because, as with teaching oneself piano, bad teaching habits get engrained easily.

That said, some subjects are more difficult than others to teach, and thus require better education.

A friend who came from a wealthy family went to an Ivy League teaching school. While she was there, her family went bankrupt and she had to take on student loans. Fast forward to today, she regrets going there, saying a cheap state school would have been just as effective for her career.

You aren’t really paying Ivy League prices for the quality of the classes, but more the quality of the connections and reputation.

This is true (for anyone, actually), but how would a teacher leverage such connections?

Shouldn't need any degrees tbh, only the ability to do their job

Fwiw, in 1900 my grandfather taught school in Washington State. He was 16 years old.

I don't know how good he was, just saying it wasn't so long ago.

It depends on the grade though: no degree would probably be fine for a kindergarten teacher, but I'd be a little concerned if a high school math/science teacher had zero post-secondary experience, especially if this were at a school where most students are planning on attending university.

My mother was one of those teachers that had questionable qualifications. This was a problem from time to time as different government edicts and local authority changes made teachers effectively reapply for their jobs.

Eventually she did get a degree, albeit with my father writing up most of the assignments, however, I was underwhelmed by this. I felt that it was quite an indulgence for just a piece of paper.

Subject matter does matter. My mother was teaching art which might as well have been craft. What she brought to the class was experience, experience in crafts and experience existing as a money-making artist. She also knew a few people.

Few in academia could match her skill set and there were no complaints. It didn't matter that she was practically illiterate when it came to writing.

No job "needs advanced degrees". They need experience.

If you want to get your foot in the door in a competitive market, degrees help. They offer some substitute for experience. But it's ridiculous to require them.

Do you mean for a teaching job, or just any job? Certainly in fields like biology, you can only be taken seriously by others in the field by having an advanced degree (which is really only the beginning).

In computing, in the commercial field, you can of course get by with no degree.

I mean any job. I trust a senior biologist with no degree over a fresh college biology grad with no experience any day.

some studies even saying experience was irrelevant along with advanced degrees. so what do teachers need? big personalities?

> Have you never met a bad doctor? A shoddy lawyer? A barista with a PhD?

I presume the implication is that bad doctors and shoddy lawyers exist and just because they have advanced degrees doesn't make them good at what they do. This seems reasonable.

BUT, I find it fascinating that people who aren't doctors or medical experts think they can spot a "bad" doctor or people who aren't lawyers or experts in law think they can spot a "shoddy" lawyer.

A good doctor/lawyer makes good decisions and executes beneficial actions given the facts surrounding a situation. It's pretty hard to judge whether those decisions and actions are good or bad if one isn't an expert.

That's a huge motivating factor for professional licenses.

Hot take, I truly believe the answer for HS is yes. I grew up in a school district where the teachers had to have a master degree in the subject they were teaching. Those teachers strongly shaped me who I am today and I believe their advanced degree helped them become great teachers.

> I truly believe

I read through TFA and was impressed at the number of citations they offered. I had assumed (but not strongly) that there'd be a correlation, so this was enlightening.

Do you have any citations apart from your own experience?

Did you grow up wealthy? If yes, it was probably that and not the teachers.

Nope. My family was below the poverty line at one point.

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

they need money, in america.

Warning: this article is NOT advocating against teacher credentials! It's arguing educating children with inferior genes is useless anyway.

So can we please keep in mind WHO this guy is making this "argument"? He SELF identifies as a Nazi. And not like the people who constantly get accused of being a Nazi. I do not mean he's anti-immigrant or something like that. This guy is a full-blown actual Nazi. This guy is proud of holding the most despicable of Nazi viewpoints such as eugenics.

And just so we're clear about what HE means by eugenics: he means massacring people with inferior genes (and obviously, like all Nazi's for some reason ... starting with Jews). He wants, for example, black people to be massacred in the US, in part because of the argument made in this post. He does not believe you can train someone with "bad" genes to be smart (look at the graph at the bottom, even in this article he's making the point that education does not matter, only coming from a "good" family does)

Crémieux Recueil is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Lasker

And no, this is not Godwin's law. There are (still) actual Nazi's. Really. This guy is one of them.

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