Most teachers advance professionally not just through experience, but additional formal education. If those courses don’t translate into real improvements for their instructional practice, it wastes their own time and money outside the classroom.
That’s why states like Illinois, Ohio, and Kansas are tightening criteria for the credits teachers use to boost their salaries, in part to deter so-called “credit mill” programs with rapid, low-quality professional development courses. In particular, a new Illinois law in effect this school year may provide a model for rethinking education credits in teacher salaries.
“The courses that are sometimes available by shady operators may be good for personal well-being—the kind to give you tips for coping with stress—but it doesn’t really rise to graduate-level education,” said Democratic Rep. Katie Stuart, a former high school math teacher and the assistant majority leader who co-sponsored the law in the Illinois General Assembly. “I think it diminishes the profession if those things are counted the same as real courses on pedagogy and teaching methods or advanced work in the subject matter that you teach.”
Most school districts nationwide pay teachers through a structure in which a teacher moves up a “step” for each year of teaching experience, and over a “lane” for each level of education above what’s required to be licensed.
Illinois is one of 15 states that explicitly require districts to pay teachers more money for earning a master’s degree—and more than 9 in 10 large school districts nationwide offer such premiums to teachers, according to 2026 data from the National Council on Teacher Quality.
Now, for licensed Illinois teachers to use a course to move to a higher salary lane, it must:
- Be offered through a regionally accredited higher education institution;
- Be taught by a credentialed teacher with at least a master’s degree and expertise in the subject area of the course; and
- Earn graduate degree credit on an official academic transcript.
However, the new law does not stop teachers from earning separate pay bumps for microcredentials or additional certifications.
“To me, it’s pretty important for a state or a district to establish what counts toward salary advancement,” said Jim Hall, chief executive officer of the K-12 Coalition, which represents professional development and teacher certification companies, who testified about teacher PD in March during a hearing on the Illinois bill.
The Albion Institute (formerly the Albion Center at Idaho State University) was one of the programs noted in discussions of the Illinois law, for providing self-paced online courses. Albion notes that a one-credit class represents 15 hours of instructional work, but education officials in Illinois, as well as in Ohio and Kansas, have banned the program from being used for licensure renewal after reports of three-credit-hour courses taking anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes.
The Albion Institute said in a statement that it has launched a pilot to “verify alignment between course learning outcomes, program learning outcomes, and accreditation standards” and has added new “PD+" courses intended to meet accreditation standards.
Under traditional Carnegie units, which measure instructional time to calculate credit, a three-credit-hour, graduate-level course typically includes about 45 hours of instruction, along with time for reflection and classwork.
“We wanted to make sure that if teachers are paying for credits—if they’re putting their time and money in—that those can translate ultimately into a master’s degree or a certification,” Stuart said.
Teacher PD should be linked with boosting student achievement
But experts argue state restrictions on credit structure may not go far enough to align teacher professional development with actual instructional improvements.
Heather Peske, executive director of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said she thought the Illinois law could help curb low-quality professional development providers. But overall, she said, providing salary bumps for master’s degrees has shown little evidence of improving student achievement unless the courses are tailored to boosting teachers’ subject-matter expertise in secondary school.
Some states, such as North Carolina, have moved away from education-based salary lane changes, focusing instead on creating ladders for teacher leadership and mentoring positions.
“When deciding courses that should be approved for salary advancement, [district] leaders need to say, ‘all right, what is our strategic plan? If it’s to improve adolescent literacy scores, I am going to approve courses that sit within our strategic objectives for that district,’” Hall said. “That is the next level of oversight that a school district should have in what they approve for teachers.”
As a former high school math teacher, Stuart, the Illinois representative, said college courses in related fields, such as physics and economics, helped broaden her expertise in her subject area, and noted many teachers also seek advanced degrees in subjects like psychology and behavioral development.
“Our understanding of the brain is growing constantly,” she said. “It’s just a natural interest of a lot of teachers wanting to keep up to date on understanding the latest developments.”
