National Board Certificate

Ha Ha Ha! I knew it!

No disrespect to those teachers who went through all the hard work of getting the National Board Certificate (many say it was a great learning experience), but I have never held any hope that it would really benefit education in America. I watched a presentation about this when it was new, and immediately concluded that it was just another "reform" program designed to get teachers to give up "old fashioned" (effective) teaching stratagies and replace them with all the latest fads.

Education Week, 17 May 2006 (p. 01)
“Study for NBPTS Raises Questions About Credential”

A year-old study only recently summarized on the Web site of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards concludes that board-certified teachers are no more effective at improving student performance than teachers without the credential.

The study, conducted by William Sanders, the statistician who came up with the “value added” method of evaluating teacher effectiveness, examined some 35,000 student records and more than 800 teachers in North Carolina.

The Sanders findings are important because the cost to date of certifying about 47,500 teachers is more than $600 million. A board spokesman said they do not intend to make the entire paper public, however.

Oh, no, we won't make all this public. There are 47,500 constituents out there who have benefited from the $600 million cash cow and they aren't going to let us end yet another boondoggle spending program.