North Carolina ends increased pay for teachers holding master degrees

[cookderosa]

I moved to North Carolina about 9 months ago. I live in Charlotte, where there are MORE private schools than public, and with a HUGE homeschool population that exceeds 20,000 students. Why? Because NC ranks among the lowest education systems in our country. That said, I have a mixed feeling about this decision. In one breath, it argues what homeschool parents have argued all along: you don't need to be highly educated to teach. In fact, some argue that the two are not always correlated, which this article starts to point out. I probably agree if we're talking about average kids in a well-funded school district. If you start factoring in special education, learning disabilities, very low socio-economic communities, etc., then I think these teachers DO need a bit more training on classroom management.
On the other hand, we need to consider the message this sends to the kids and potential future teachers and community at large. This tells our teachers that their growth potential/income / job security is capped, and if they can't live on $X then they shouldn't go into teaching. North Carolina can't find teachers, we have a dismal situation here. I can't imagine how this will really help.