New Dem Play | Making better use of National Board Certified Teachers
Where It's Working | California, Illinois, and North Carolina
Players | State and local officials
As state and local leaders work to improve struggling schools, teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) are a largely underutilized resource that can help these efforts. A nonprofit organization created in 1987 with government and foundation support, NBPTS works to identify and reward outstanding teachers with a national certificate of expertise. Candidates for NBPTS certification complete a rigorous process that includes a formal assessment of skills and knowledge as well as a portfolio of work and evidence of professional mastery. The board currently certifies teachers in 24 different subjects across four student age groups.
Nationally, more than 40,200 teachers now hold this designation. All 50 states and some 544 school districts offer some sort of incentive for teachers to become board certified, and 30 states and the District of Columbia offer bonuses or higher salaries to National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs), amounting to some $100 million or more annually. Statistics show NBCTs do in fact produce results. Students of NBCTs score seven to 15 percentage points higher on year-end tests than students of non-NBCTs, and NBCTs seem to be particularly effective with minority students
Unfortunately, efforts to encourage teachers to improve and demonstrate their qualifications through National Board Certification are often divorced from those aimed at improving low-performing schools or attracting skilled teachers to schools that have difficulty hiring them. Research suggests that NBCTs are disproportionately working in affluent schools and those with fewer minority students. In addition, in many states, the bonuses or salary increases offered to NBCTs are not large enough to make teaching salaries competitive with other high-skill fields.
State policymakers can resolve this mismatch and link NBCT bonuses to school improvements by taking two related steps:
Making the maximum differentials and bonuses for NBCTs more substantial than they are now; and
Targeting bonuses and differentials to NBCTs who work in high-poverty and/or low-performing schools or serve in state teacher mentoring or school improvement initiatives.
Helping struggling schools demands that all resources be used as effectively as possible. Larger but better-targeted bonuses and differentials for NBCTs will ultimately leverage greater educational improvement than smaller, more diffuse incentives divorced from broader state and national policy goals.
There are multiple ways that state policymakers can link NBPTS incentives to activities that benefit high-poverty and/or low-performing schools. Currently, three states -- California, Illinois, and New York -- offer robust incentives for NBCTs to work in low-performing or high-poverty schools. In California, NBCTs who teach in low-performing schools receive a bonus of $20,000 paid out over four years. In New York, NBCTs who teach in low-performing schools and mentor new teachers receive a $10,000 bonus annually for three years. Both of these incentives are greater than those offered in most other states, but only NBCTs who work in low-performing schools are eligible. In Illinois, by contrast, all NBCTs are eligible for a $3,000 annual incentive, and those who mentor teachers in low-performing schools receive an additional $3,000 annually (and any NBCT who mentors new teachers can receive $1,000).
One possible state system would create a three-tiered approach that offers modest recognition for all teachers who achieve NBPTS certification, greater bonuses for participating in state school improvement efforts, and the most substantial differentials for NBCTs who teach in hard-to-serve schools. Other options include:
Tying incentives to the in-school distribution of NBCTs. More experienced teachers are less likely to teach struggling students not only on a school-by-school basis but also within schools;
Offering a sliding scale of bonuses based on the number of hours a NBPTS teacher works annually on state school improvement efforts;
Providing funding to cover school districts' costs (such as substitute teachers) of allowing NBPTS teachers to participate in school improvement efforts in low-performing schools;
Requiring NBCTs to mentor less-experienced teachers; or
Allowing NBCTs to serve full-time as part of school improvement efforts for a fixed period while protecting their benefits and seniority.
States can also partner with teachers unions, the philanthropic community, and the private sector to encourage matches for bonuses and differentials and other strategies to further reward NBCTs engaged in state school improvement efforts.
In isolation, NBCTs cannot be expected to help turn around low-performing schools or solve the teacher quality problem. But state policymakers can strengthen policies to ensure that this currently under-utilized pool of potential talent is effectively targeted toward school improvement.
California's Certification Incentive Program
www.cde.ca.gov/ta/sr/nb/
California Education Code Section 44395
www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc
&group=44001-45000&file=44395-44399
Illinois State Department of Education National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (includes legislation)
www.isbe.net/profprep/nbpts.htm
NBPTS State and Local Support/Incentives Directory (includes contacts for your state)
www.nbpts.org/about/state.cfm
State Incentive Programs for Recruiting and Retaining Effective New Teachers in Hard-to-Staff Schools,
Education Commission of the States, August 2002
www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/39/16/3916.htm
Andrew J. Rotherham, Opportunity and Responsibility for National Board Certified Teachers, Progressive Policy Institute, March 2004
www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=110
&subsecID=135&contentID=252498
Ms. Mary E. Dilworth
Vice President, Higher Education and Research Initiatives
The National Board for Professional Teacher Standards
1525 Wilson Blvd., Suite 500
Arlington, VA 22209
(703) 465-2700
(703) 465-2715 (fax)
dlussier@nbpts.org
Andrew Rotherham
Co-Founder and Co-Director
Education Sector
1201 Connecticut Ave, NW
Suite 850
Washington, DC 20036
(434) 973-2173
arotherham@educationsector.org
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