Recruiting and Retaining Board-Certified Teachers for Hard-to-Staff Schools

Abstract

Nowhere is the issue of providing high-quality teachers for all students more complicated than in high-need schools, where the everyday challenges of teaching greatly intensified. Drawing on research and on insights from accomplished teachers, Mr. Berry discusses the steps that can be taken to staff such schools with the best of the profession. I have taught in two hard-to-staff schools--one for the last 16 years. From my own experience and from what I am hearing now from colleagues, sending accomplished teachers in isolation into hard-to-staff schools with no connections and no authority, even with combat pay, would be just as effective in raising student achievement as having the accomplished teachers dance naked in local churches. --Alexis, a National Board Certified Teacher and member of the Teacher Leaders Network (www.teacherleaders.org) OVER THE LAST 15 years, research has consistently identified the inextricable links between the quality of teachers and the achievement of students. (1) However, scholars have struggled to come to a consensus on how to identify accomplished teachers--until recently. In 2004, three separate research studies showed that teachers who earn certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), known as board-certified teachers, actually do produce greater student achievement gains than other teachers and especially effective for lower-achieving students. (2) These studies support what most teachers who seek board certification have claimed--the process offers the most rigorous professional development experiences they have ever had. Board-certified teachers have to pass both a portfolio assessment, which requires them to diagnose student learning difficulties, and a rigorous daylong, timed standardized test that measures their knowledge of content and of how to teach it. Less than half of those who sit for NBPTS certification for the first time ultimately achieve that goal. This is the good news. The NBPTS developed and made available sophisticated teaching assessments in nearly two dozen fields. Most states and many school districts have chosen to make investments in teachers who undertake the rigorous performance-based assessment--a process akin to doctors seeking board certification in their specialty areas. (3) The Progressive Policy Institute estimated in a recent report that states and districts spending over $100 million per year on assessment fees ($2,300 per teacher) and salary supplements for teachers who earn the certificate. In some states, board-certified teachers can earn substantially more (e.g., a 12% salary supplement in North Carolina and a $7,500 increase in South Carolina). (4) The bad news is that most board-certified teachers will not be found teaching in low-performing schools or in schools serving poor and minority students. A recent study by Dan Humphrey, Julia Koppich, and Heather Hough has clearly revealed that only 19% of board-certified teachers work in schools in the bottom third of performance for their state. (5) In drawing on these data in a thoughtful essay in the March 30 edition of Education Week, Andrew Rotherham argued that the vast majority of incentives for board certification, while important in encouraging and recognizing accomplished teachers, are generally divorced from efforts to make the distribution of top-flight teachers more equitable. We also believe that policy makers have every right to be concerned about where board-certified teachers teaching and should be considering new policies to ensure that our nation's most challenging schools staffed with caring, qualified, well-supported, and effective teachers. A number of states and districts now considering policies that would encourage or require teachers with NBPTS certification to accept assignments in low-performing schools and classrooms. For example, in Georgia, legislators recently passed a bill that eliminates the previous 10% salary incentives for all new board-certified teachers. …