New studies contend that teachers who earn national board certification are more effective in terms of raising student achievement than those without the credential. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) 
established the credential in 1987 and says that the new studies lay to rest the debate about whether teachers who successfully complete the national certification process are better equipped than other teachers to raise student test scores.
There have been bumps along the way. A 2006 study conducted by William Sanders, the pioneer of “value-added” analysis of teaching effectiveness, concluded that national board certified teachers (NBCTs) were no better at raising student outcomes than other teachers. It was the first study to raise doubts about NBPTS’ ability to transform the teaching profession by improving the quality of teaching.
NBPTS developed the rigorous certification process to recognize highly accomplished teaching and to elevate it to the level of other professions with licensing bodies such as accounting and medicine. Since 1987, the board has certified approximately 64,000 of the nearly 100,000 teachers who have applied for the credential, fewer than three percent of the nation’s 3.7 million teachers. In that time, the board has received more than $100 million in federal dollars as well as private financial backing to fund its efforts.
Does national board certification produce teachers who have the ability to raise student achievement? The latest studies say yes. Is it cost effective? There hasn’t been enough research to know for sure.
A 17-member panel of the National Research Council recently published its study on how national teacher certification programs (NBPTS and the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence ) accomplish their missions. Assessing Accomplished Teaching: Advanced-Level Certification Programs edited by Milton D. Hakel, Judith Anderson Koenig, and Stuart W. Elliot, says that teachers who earn national board certification are more effective than teachers without the credential, but the certification process hasn’t changed the profession the way NBPTS originally envisioned.
The study focused on NBCTs in North Carolina and Florida—specifically whether those teachers were able to raise student achievement. The bottom line is that test scores for students taught by NBCTs were higher than their peers. The panel could not agree on whether the overall effect the teachers had on student test scores was large or small given the typically slight improvement in student test scores from year to year.
In addition to raising student achievement, national board certification appears to have a positive effect on teacher retention. Teachers who earn the certification are more likely to stay in the profession.
That doesn’t mean they’ll stay at the most challenging schools. NBCTs are more likely to move to better teaching assignments in schools with higher student achievement and less poverty. The tendency does not appear to be more prevalent with teachers who’ve earned the credential than with other teachers who have excellent qualifications.
A more distressing fact is that administrators often don’t use the expertise of NBCTs to benefit the teacher population as a whole. They don’t consider NBCTs for new opportunities and often overlook them for roles they would seem ideally suited for (as mentors or team leaders). Some receive no recognition or reward for their accomplishments, and some are reluctant to tell colleagues they’ve earned the credential for fear they’ll be resented.
So while the certification program does appear to improve teacher quality, the effect is muted because schools don’t take advantage of the expertise NBCTs have to offer. The report concludes that so far, there isn’t compelling evidence that the certification program’s existence has had a significant impact on the field of teaching or education as a whole.
Congress commissioned the study in part to gauge the costs and benefits of national board certification. While the process does identify and develop effective teachers, there isn’t enough research to reach a conclusion about whether it does so in a cost-effective way.
A second unpublished study commissioned by NBPTS urges the board to take student learning gains into account when deciding which teachers will earn national board certification.
At present, teachers take one to three years to complete a performance-based assessment. The assessment includes portfolios of student work, classroom assignments, videotaped lessons, tests of content knowledge, and a thorough analysis of classroom teaching.
Researchers from Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and the Los Angeles Unified School District want NBPTS to combine the current assessment with value-added calculations to take into account the test-score gains of prospective NBCTs. They believe that bringing the two camps in the teacher effectiveness debate together—those who focus on student achievement and those who focus on measures of teacher practice—is the approach that’s likely to guarantee the best results.
The study used unique methodology to show that students whose teachers earned high marks on the NBPTS performance assessment gained significantly more on state tests over the course of the school year than those taught by low-scoring teachers. The study also compared the high-scoring student group with students whose teachers did not apply for certification. In that case, test score gains for students taught by NBPTS teachers were higher but statistically insignificant.
Researchers then used four years of student test-score data and performed a similar analysis with value-added calculations. The overall pattern of results was much the same, but value-added analyses did an even better job of predicting which teachers were most likely to produce bigger student learning gains than NBPTS’ current performance assessment.
The 10 components of the NBPTS performance assessment were also analyzed to determine which tasks could be most strongly linked to student achievement. For example, videotaped lessons proved to be a better predictor of student achievement than samples of teachers’ written feedback. Researchers said NBPTS can double the assessment system’s ability to predict who the test-score boosting teachers are by giving more weight to tasks linked closely to improved student achievement.
NBPTS will post the new research on its Web site soon.
Not to be left out of the debate, a group of teachers who have earned national certification says the conflicting data on how much impact NBCTs have on student achievement does not tell the entire story of the benefits the rigorous certification process has on teachers, their students, and their schools.
“Measuring What Matters: The Effects on National Board Certification on Advancing 21st Century Teaching and Learning,” was commissioned by the national board and the Center for Teaching Quality, which led the project. NBCTs say the intense certification process affects a teacher’s practice in ways that go beyond what test scores can measure.
The report urges NBCTs to become active in policy discussions and become leaders in improving teacher quality. For example, NBCTs could take on expanded responsibilities training colleagues, developing curriculum, or assessing teacher effectiveness.
NBPTS leaders have approved a plan to establish a certification program for school administrators similar to its teacher certification program. The national board is seeking $7 million to develop administrator standards and certification requirements and intends to launch a certification program in about three years.
NBPTS has also launched an initiative to increase teacher quality in high-needs schools. The Targeted High Need Initiative Comprehensive Candidate Support Centers will provide financial and professional resources to partner school systems, teacher colleges, and teachers’ unions to create an infrastructure to recruit and train teachers to pursue national board certification with the long-term goal of improving student achievement in high-need districts.
—“National Board Teachers Found to Be Effective,” by Debra Viadero and Vaishali Honawar, Education Week online, June 11, 2008.
—“Study Urges National Board to Weigh Student Gains,” by Debra Viadero, Education Week online, June 30, 2008.
—“Teachers Make Case for National Board,” by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, Education Week online, July 17, 2008.
—“NBPTS Gears Up in High-Need Districts,” by Vaishali Honawar, Education Week, Aug. 13, 2008.
