Assessment of national board certification for improving teaching quality

¶ … National Board Certification as a Professional Tool for Improving the Quality of the Teaching Workforce

America has many challenges to face in the 21st century: Currently, we're embroiled in a war against terror which seems to have a greater scope and grip internationally everyday; we're struggling with income disparities that are among the most egregious in our nation's history; violent crime in America is unique in the industrialized world; and AIDS, teenage pregnancy and other social problems have established that they are not just fleeting problems.

But perhaps the greatest challenge facing America today is the state of our education system. Ambitious projects such as No Child Left Behind establish the fact that education is on the forefront of our goals, and may now have the attention of the current administration too.

Amidst the various changes that are being implemented to better our education system, the thought of national board certification as a professional tool for improving the quality of the teaching workforce is a constant source of debate.

Is certification a means by which we can improve the education of our nation's youth? Or is it a bureaucratic nightmare that will not only stifle teachers' creativity but also their ability to earn a living, thereby further jeopardizing our educational system?

This paper seeks to research the issue thoroughly, presenting all viewpoints associated with national board certification for teachers in America.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to examine all of the data -- both qualitative and quantitative -- and truly make a policy assessment on national board certification for teachers in America.

Most of the available data is written with a particular goal in mind, so is biased. This study will maintain impartiality and arrive at a policy initiative based on the totality of the research available.

Research Objective

The research objective is simple in concept, but difficult in execution: to determine whether national board certification for teachers in America produces tangibles results in our classrooms.

The secondary objective is to draw together the various previous efforts at researching this very topic into one succinct, broad yet detailed review.

Significance of the Study

As mentioned above, the study could not be timelier, given our nation's current focus on education and teacher and school standards via the recent passage of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The study tackles the root cause of America's many problems, rather than symptoms. By attacking income disparity, crime and targeted issues such as teenage sexual promiscuity, we can only ameliorate symptoms. However, by improving our nation's education system, we have a chance to head off many of nation's problems at the pass, or nip them in the bud.

That is why a study on national board certification for teachers in America is so significant and timely today.

Definition of Terms

CHAPTER 2 -- REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The history of national board certification for teachers in America

For almost the last 20 years, the American education establishment has urged teachers to seek national certification via the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and has suggested that these supposedly superior teachers be eligible for significant state and local bonus structures to bolster their compensation plans. In 1996, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future urged that the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the NBPTS become two equal portions of a system wherein education professionals (including the powerful teachers' unions) would control more stringently the entrance to teaching and compensation and rewards within the profession.

Critics of the move noted that there have been no studies showing that NBPTS-certified teachers are more adept at raising student achievement than are non-NBPTS-certified teachers. One of these critics, Professor John Stone, "looked at value-added data of the 16 NBPTS-certified teachers in Tennessee for whom such data were available and found that achievement gains for students taught by the nationally certified teachers were no greater than for students taught by non-NBPTS-certified teachers. The Education Commission of the States (ECS) then assembled a panel of "experts" to find fault with the Stone study. The tax-funded ECS, which has promoted NBPTS participation, has never paid for a single study to check on the NBPTS' many claims of success. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has made a $5 million grant to an emerging American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE), which is seeking to set up a credentialing system that will be based on teachers' grasp of knowledge and their ability to impart what they know to their students, in verifiable ways. Healthy competition in teacher certification could result." (Holland, 2002)

How does certification work?

Before discussing the merits and detractions of national teacher certification, it is beneficial to examine first how such a system functions in a particular state; or, in the case, the commonwealth of Virginia.

NBPTS was established in 1987 to set high standards for what experts believe teachers need to know and be able to do, and to certify those particular teachers who strive hard to meet those standards. NBPTS acts as an independent, nonprofit, and nongovernmental organization governed by a 63-member board of directors, the majority of whom are -- or at least were -- classroom teachers themselves.

National board certification is a demonstration of teaching practice as measured against high and rigorous standards. It is a badge of "commitment to excellence in teaching." (VA NBC, 2005) Administered on a voluntary basis to classroom teachers with at least three years of teaching experience, the system of national board certification complements, but does not supplant, state licensing. There are currently 23,930 National Board Certified teachers in our 50 states, overseas, and Washington, DC.

Candidates take part in an extensive yearlong assessment of actual teaching exercises. Teachers applying for national board certification are asked to demonstrate principled, professional judgment in a variety of situations.

The performance-based assessments require teaching portfolios, consisting of student work, work samples, videotapes, and thoughtful, written analyses of the candidates' classroom work and of the students' actual learning. Candidates also finish many timed, written exercises designed to explore the depth of their subject matter knowledge, as well as their understanding of how to teach those subjects to their kids in class. National board certification is unique in that it measures not only the knowledge teachers have in their subjects of specialty, but the actual utilization of their skills and professional judgment in the classroom as they strive to increase student learning. A candidate's attempts will generally take most of a school year and take a total of 200-400 hours of work.

A teacher can shoot for national board certification if he or she holds a baccalaureate degree from an accredited institution, has taught in a classroom for a minimum of three years, and has held a valid state teaching license for those same three years.

In Virginia, the candidate fee is $2,300. (VA NBC, 2004) The Virginia General Assembly appropriated $75,000 for each year of the 2002-04 biennium to support $1,000 of the application fee for 75 candidates. (VA NBC, 2004) Virginia also received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to assist in funding application fees. There are currently 202 national board certification candidates who were awarded either a $2,000 or a $1,000 federal or state subsidy grant for the 2002-03 process. (VA NBC, 2004) In addition, several Virginia school divisions are providing full or partial fee payment for approximately 50 candidates. (VA NBC, 2004) There are also 94 advanced candidates for this assessment cycle.

The Division of Teacher Education and Licensure runs the subsidy grant program that grants subsidy grants to candidates using state and/or federal funds. The 2003-04 subsidy grant application process finished with 246 candidates being randomly selected and distributed among the eight superintendents' regions: 75 candidates received a $2,000 grant; 169 received a $1,000 grant. (VA NBC, 2004) The 2005-06 subsidy grant application process will begin in April 2005 for teachers who desire to seek National Board Certification during the 2005-06 school year.

Virginia is one of 48 states offering regulatory or legislative support for national board certification. In addition to the candidate subsidy funding initiative, the 1999 Virginia General Assembly passed legislation in HB 2710, The Education Accountability and Quality Enhancement Act, section 22.1.299.2 to provide a National Board Certification Incentive Reward to those teachers in Virginia who have achieved National Board Certification. (VA NBC, 2004)

The commonwealth of Virginia feels that "National Board Certification is a catalyst for teachers' professional growth, and candidates may use this activity toward license renewal." (VA NBC, 2004) Candidates have to contact their employing school division regarding using this activity for renewal.

A National Board certificate is good for 10 years from the exact date of certification. NBPTS policy states that the certificate may be renewed. A renewal program and its procedures are currently under development by the NBPTS board of directors. (VA NBC, 2004)

What is the current certification political mood in America?

The United States education establishment has maintained for decades that teachers will not and cannot be truly qualified to teach in America's elementary and secondary schools without first obtaining a license based on completing many credit-hours in "how to teach" from education's professional schools. (Holland, 2002)

Opponents of national board certification argue that these schools place only passing emphasis on future teachers' mastery of the subject matter they will teach their students. Those are, of course, the same educational programs from which many of the current education officials themselves graduated. Of course, they are loathe to admit that there are more intellectually productive routes to fulfilling, productive teaching careers according to Robert Holland. (Holland, 2002)

Since 1987, the education powers-that-be have taken that dictum to a higher level via the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). Through this entity -- which is lavishly funded by elite foundations and the government -- they assert that national certifying of teachers according to the prevailing intellectual standards of the education-school establishment will create a fleet of master teachers who will be instrumental in elevating the state of public-school teaching. (Holland, 2002)

Recently the certification-as-usual mindset has come under challenge, most importantly by the United States Secretary of Education Rod Paige. In implementing the federal No Child Left Behind Act as a member of the Bush Administration, Paige has "disputed any notion that the Act's call for placement of a "highly qualified" teacher in every classroom means that every teacher should be highly certified by the standard educationist yardstick." (Holland, 2002)

In fact, Paige has championed the idea of bringing in able persons to teaching from the liberal arts disciplines or after valuable real world experience in other career paths. Candidates can demonstrate that hey are highly qualified by passing stringent examinations of academic content and teaching skills, as opposed to simply presenting transcripts of completed education-school courses.

In addition, under Paige, the Department of Education has given a $5 million grant to a new organization that is proposing an alternative model of national teacher certification based on stringent standards of academic achievement as opposed to education-school theory. Still, certification proponents can expect a battle royal over teacher licensing and certification to continue for many years to come. Hard-line education-establishment officials in the teacher unions and education bureaucracies will not yield sanguinely to the idea of intellectual diversity. "In response to Secretary Paige's fresh thinking, they have been rallying around the NBPTS as well as the other, longer established instruments of centralized control of teacher preparation and certification." (Holland, 2002)

Does certification truly make one a better teacher?

In its totality, the most critical query about the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is whether it makes a positive difference in the American classroom. A fierce disagreement rages over that point. One of the leading critics -- Michael Podgursky, chairperson of the economics department at the University of Missouri/Columbia -- has long contended that the education establishment has commissioned "no rigorous study" to ascertain if students in the classroom NBPTS-certified teachers learn more than do students in the classroom of other teachers. (Holland, 2002)

Podgursky argues that an analysis of NBPTS funded by $500,000 from the U.S. Department of Education failed any recognized test of effectiveness because it rejected out of hand taking students' standardized test scores into account. Unsurprisingly, Betty Castor, the president of NBPTS, disagreed entirely. As evidence, Castor pointed at a study by researchers at the University of North Carolina/Greensboro that examined 65 teachers who had applied for the national certification, approximately half of whom received it. (Holland, 2002)

This team -- funded by the U.S. Department of Education and NBPTS -- found that the certified teachers did noticeably better on "most of the "dimensions of teaching expertise" that NBPTS assesses in its standards. But these Dimensions exude a subjective quality -- for instance, one assaying "multidimensional perception," defined as "demonstrating a deeper understanding of students' verbal and non-verbal responses, and using this information to prioritize instruction." Given that it was by such murky yardsticks that the NBPTS candidates were measured, it was no surprise that those winning certification did better that those that did not. That's in fact self-obvious. The still-unanswered question is: Does that make any difference in the classroom in terms of what students achieve?" (Holland, 2002)

The Stone study is the either the most famous or infamous yardstick in measuring the effectiveness of national board certification for teachers, depending on the observer's viewpoint. Pulling from data from established by the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System for the 16 NBPTS-certified grades 3-8 teachers in Tennessee who have value-added teacher reports in the state database, Professor of Education J.E. Stone from East Tennessee State University found in May 2002 that the nationally board-certified teachers had not risen above average in bringing about increased achievement by their students. (Holland, 2002)

Examining the Stone study in detail is critical in discovering whether national certification for teachers is a positive development.

The 16 NBPTS certified teachers for whom TVAAS data are available are not exceptionally effective in terms of their ability to bring about exemplary student achievement. (Holland, 2002) With the exception of the above noted highs and lows, the achievement gains made by their students are no more impressive than those made by students who had other teachers. For instance, none of these teachers would have qualified for the bonus offered in Chattanooga. "Plainly, these findings are distinctly at odds with that which policymakers and the public have been given to understand about the quality of NBPTS certified teachers." (Stone, 2002)

An Education Week article titled "National Certification Found Valid for Teachers," NBPTS President Betty Castor said this of the UNCG study: "It gives us-parents, elected officials, and policymakers -- the absolute highest confidence that national-board-certified teachers are providing students with a high-quality learning experience." (Stone, 2002) According to Stone, her brash confidence was misplaced.

One of the questions Stone sought to answer was whether there is some chance that the teacher-effect scores earned by these classroom teachers in this report are misleadingly low?

Without a doubt, some of the scores reported in any study are underestimates and some are overestimates. This error goes with the territory. Annual guesses of the impact had by teachers on students' achievement in the classroom can be unstable but the errors in estimation tend to balance out when scores are considered in the aggregate, according to Stone.

As a practical guide for estimating how many scores are necessary to create an accurate measurement of a given teacher's performance, one must consider the number of test scores that factor into a student grade for a semester-long college course. "Assuming that a teacher in grades three through eight would have fifteen to twenty students, the estimated annual achievement gains for the teachers in this study are probably based on three or four times as many test scores as the typical college course grade. Stated a bit more technically, gain scores have a larger error component but TVAAS teacher-effect averages compensate by including a larger number of scores." (Stone, 2002)

Because Tennessee seeks to bestow upon teachers a much higher level of insurance or buffer against inaccurate assessments than is typically assured by college grading practices, Tennessee's use of "teacher effect" scores in annual teacher evaluations is statistically very conservative. A particular teacher is classified as above or below average only if his or her three-year rolling average is greater than two standard errors above or below the system mean.

Stone asked in his study whether it is necessary for a study of this kind to consider only three-year weighted averages?

Since the precise classification of particular teachers was not the primary goal of the Stone study, the restrictions appropriate to clinical application of these data are not essential. It should be mentioned, however, that none of the teachers for whom three years of data are available have an average of 115% performance, in any subject at all. In fact, with the exception of the Social Studies scores of Teacher 1 examined in the Stone study, none of the teachers with less than three years of data would even be close to achieving the 115% criterion without substantially improved second or third years. This means that, according to Stone, it is unlikely that any of the teachers in this study would have been classified as exceptional had 3 years of data been available, and this is a weighty realization indeed. (Stone, 2002)

Stone had to face the challenge of whether the 16 teachers in his study representative of all NBPTS-certified teachers.

Stone defended his work by noting that in any study, the available sample may misrepresent the population. This means that it is at least statistically possible that while none of these NBPTS teachers appears to be exceptional, the sixteen thousand or so others for whom teacher-effect scores are unavailable would be so classified.

"How plausible is this conclusion? Not very. One would have to presume that the present sample is an anomaly -- perhaps a group of teachers who test well but perform poorly in the classroom. In truth, it is more likely that the initial applicants for NBPTS certification would be above-average representatives of their group." (Stone, 2002) But of course, it is Stone's job and role to defend his own study against those critics who would challenge him on statistical grounds.

Again, Stone brushes back critics by considering his data from a practical standpoint as well: "If a grocer bought several cases of premium, hand-wrapped, large apples and found the first box to be 85% mediums and smalls, he would certainly have good reason to be skeptical about the rest. Moreover, if the apples cost as much as NBPTS certified teachers, the grocer would be entirely justified in demanding a refund and finding a new supplier." (Stone, 2002)

There exists one final observation regarding the statistical limitations of Stone's study: However, note we musts note that a majority of the studies that have drawn positive conclusions regarding NBPTS-certified teachers have posed similar limitations. For example, the UNCG study discussed above included only 31 NBPTS-certified teachers. A 1995 study sponsored by the NBPTS compared three NBPTS-certified teachers to three non-certified teachers. (Stone, 2002) In tests for the effectiveness of national teacher certification, a limited number of subjects is simply not considered a complete bar -- or even a partial bar -- to scientific and practical importance in these earlier studies.

The findings of Stone's study present serious challenges to NBPTS's assertions regarding its teacher quality standards and certification process. At a bare minimum, the Stone study intimates that public expenditures on NBPTS certification and teacher bonuses should be held in check "until it can be clearly and independently established that NBPTS certification delivers what it promises." (Stone, 2002)

The number of teachers in the Stone study was small, yes, but definitely in the same ballpark as the numbers of teachers in the studies on which the NBPTS has based its claims. Critically, however, the Stone study was independently conducted and it links NBPTS certification to the outcome of greatest interest to policymakers and the public. This contrasts strongly with the NBPTS-commissioned studies which, of coruse, may have been biased.

Although the Stone study's findings are not completely definitive, the data he derived clearly indicate that the NBPTS standards and certification process -- at least as presently constituted -- are not advancing the teacher quality aims of public policy.

Stone finally asked, as an alternative, if NBPTS certified teachers exceptional in some respect other than their ability to improve objectively measured student achievement. After all, teacher effectiveness is not always completely measurable in quantitative data, and Stone wanted to leave -- pun unintended -- no stone unturned at all in his study.

To that end, Stone found that it may be that the teachers in this study are exemplars of the teaching practices idealized by NBPTS, NCATE, and INTASC and that their teacher-effect scores are only average because NBPTS, et al., measured student achievement as something less than a top priority. (Stone, 2002) "To the contrary, Tennessee and most other states treat measured achievement as an unrivaled priority; thus teachers who fail to produce exceptional student achievement would not be considered "exceptional" regardless of whatever else they are able to do. Contrary to the view expressed in the UNCG study, parents, policymakers, and the public regard gains in objectively measured student achievement as indispensable to good teaching." (Stone, 2002)

With the value-added measurement, an annual gain equaling or surpassing 115% of the national norm gain is regarded as "exemplary" and awarded an "A." Conversely, a gain of less than 85% is deemed "deficient" and given an "F." Looking at the 16 NBPTS-certified teachers collectively, Stone found that only 14% of scores on various subjects met the "A" standard, while 10% got "Fs." (Holland, 2002)

These two extremes can easily be discounted as outliers, of course. With the majority of teachers' ratings lying between those extremes, the achievement gains achieved under NBPTS teachers were no greater than gains made with other teachers who were not certified, according to Stone. "In a move typical of the fury exhibited by an education establishment scorned, the NBPTS quickly issued a release slamming Stone's work as "hardly independent research," given that Professor Stone (the founder of the online Education Consumers Clearinghouse) had criticized the NBPTS and advocated market-based reform of teacher preparation and licensing." (Holland, 2002)

Of course, the criticism ignored the reality that researchers -- including those performing on NBPTS' payroll -- rarely lack opinions about the issues they study. The relevant question -- and the one that is, of course, hardest to answer -- is whether opinions determine the outcome.

The Denver-based Education Commission of the States (ECS), a tax-funded exemplar of the education establishment since its inception in 1965, also took issue with the Stone study as a limited study of NBPTS' effectiveness. However, such prominent education researchers as Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, defended Stone's study, noting that it "follows a well conceived methodology." (Holland, 2002)

The NBPTS noted that value-added data from just 16 teachers were too limited in scope to result in valid conclusions, but the NBPTS itself had been touting studies of its own pulling data from as few as three NBPTS-certified teachers. The relatively small number of teachers, noted Dr. Hanushek, "is not Stone's fault or choice. It simply represents the available universe of teachers." (Holland, 2002)

Indeed, if the NBPTS as a large producer could sponsor its own studies, why could not a smaller education consumers group do the same without having its integrity impugned? ECS President Ted Sanders, who served on the national commission that plugged for a vast expansion of NBPTS' influence, appointed a four-member panel headed by University of Pennsylvania education dean Susan Fuhrman, to measure the merit of Stone's study. (Holland, 2002)

Sanders' panel's objective was one of simple fault-finding, however, and not objective analysis. "The ECS has not funded so much as a single analysis of the several studies the NBPTS and its allies have issued over the years that purport to show the NBPTS' worth. Amazingly, a key point the panel used to discredit Stone' work was that he had not made clear how he selected the "study sample" of 16 teachers out of the 40 in Tennessee who have received NBPTS certification." (Holland, 2002)

However, Stone's study specifically stipulated that the 16 chosen teachers were those who "teach in grades three through eight and therefore have value-added 'teacher reports' in the state database." (Holland, 2002) Therefore, as indicated above, they were indeed not a small sample at all but the entire fleet of NBPTS-certified teachers in Tennessee for whom value-added data were obtainable.

Any expert who reads Stone's analysis with a reasonably open mind could discern that the data were not skewed because of a small sample size, Holland insists. Stone pointed out that, in contrast to studies that sample a population and draw inferences about a larger group, his Tennessee study "was simply multiple replication trial of the NBPTS certification process." (Holland, 2002) The value-added achievement gains of 16 NBPTS-certified teachers were examined. In 16 out of 16 cases they were found not to be exceptional producers of student achievement. "When a certification process is checked 16 times and found wrong every instance, any reasonable person would say it isn't trustworthy regardless of what might be inferred about others who have been certified by the same process." (Holland, 2002)

As 2002 began, the National Board seemed to back down and tacitly concede the need for more substantial research establishing its own effectiveness. The NBPTS put out a call for scholars to examine its processes without basis, and was marshaling donors willing to give "multiple millions of dollars" to bankroll new scholarship. The group retained a group led by Tennessee Value-Added guru William Sanders to compare 800 classroom teachers in the Tarheel state including those who had the national certification, those who applied but didn't achieve it, and those who have simply not chosen to apply. (Holland, 2002)

The results of this study were still unavailable, but should shed critical light on whether national board certification for teachers is a positive development.

On the flip side, studies of this nature, and particularly the Stone study, are going to be met with significant challenges from the government.

For instance, in its rebuttal to the Stone study, NBPTS impugned more than just the sample size issue in a statement released in 2002. "The recent report by J.E. Stone about testing results in Tennessee on National Board Certified Teachers is hardly independent research. Stone has been a frequent opponent of the National Board and by his own admission supports marketplace models for teaching. He opposes certificates, licensure, and credentialing and calls those efforts "meaningless." (NBPTS, 2002)