SRI Study Reinforces Disparity in Distribution of Highly Qualified Teachers

In April, 2004, SRI International released a report on the distribution of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) entitled, Sharing the Wealth: National Board Certified Teachers and the Schools That Need Them Most. SRI International focused on the six states with the largest number of Nationally Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) – California, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina – to determine the distribution of NCBTs in higher performing, typically more affluent, schools and the distribution of NCBTs in lower performing, often economically poorer, schools. Contingent upon the fact that study after study confirms that students who have high quality teachers post significant and lasting achievement gains and that those students with less effective teachers play a constant, and often losing, game of academic catch-up, SRI International’s report highlights the disparity in the distribution of NCBTs to the schools that need them most.

The correlation between high quality teaching and National Board Certification, and between high quality teaching and student achievement, is the reason behind SRI International’s study to find whether NBCTs are employed where they are needed most, in underperforming schools. Of the 18,806 NBCTs in SRI International’s analysis who earned certification since 1998:

- 2,298 NBCTs, or 12%, teach in schools with 75% or more students eligible for free or reduced price lunch.
- 3,077 NBCTs, or 16% of the total, teach in schools serving 75% or more minority students.
- 3,521 NBCTs, or 19%, work in low-performing schools, which are defined by SRI International as those schools with state tests scores in the bottom three deciles for two of the last three years beginning in the 2000- 2001 school year.

With this data, SRI International determined that in the six states with the largest number of NBCTs, poor, minority, and low-performing students are far less likely to benefit from the teaching of an NBCT that their more affluent, majority, higher performing peers.

After producing these facts and numbers, SRI International set out to uncover why NBCTs were more likely to teach in the more affluent and higher performing schools. SRI International proposed the question of how districts and states encourage teachers to become Board Certified and whether the incentives are targeted to particular kinds of schools or categories of teachers. What SRI found was that incentives related to Board Certification fall into three categories: 1) incentives for becoming a candidate for Board Certification; 2) incentives for earning Board Certification; and, 3) incentives for becoming Board Certified and teaching in a low-performing school. While over 30 of the states offer both of the first two incentives, only California and Columbus, Ohio offer the third incentive, the only incentive aimed at linking NBCTs and low-performing schools.

A fourth, yet less clearly outlined incentive for National Board candidates is professional support in the form of coaching, working with other candidates, release time and principal support. Verified by case studies and survey data, SRI International found that targeted candidate support programs appear to increase the number of NBCTs in low-performing schools, in part by ensuring a high pass rate of teachers in these schools.

However, SRI International’s report points out that these overarching fiscal and support incentives currently in place are not drastic or targeted enough to realign the NBCT distribution. Calling for the active participation of the National Board, of states and of local school districts, SRI International proposes measures that can be taken by each of these entities in order to put into motion the already established correlation between NCBTs and students achievement, in order to produce results.

The SRI International report advises the National Board to use its influence to motivate states and schools districts to:

- Create improved working condition equity between high- and low- performing schools;
- Increase financial incentives and supports for teachers who work in low- performing schools to seek Board Certification; and
- Increase targeted financial incentives to encourage teachers who hold Board Certification to select low-performing schools.

To states, SRI International’s report stresses the importance of:

- Providing extra fiscal support to those NBCTs who want to teach in low- performing schools;
- Relaxing state policy that builds barriers to inter-district transfers by capping placement on salary schedules
- Eliminating such barrier creating policies for Board Certified teachers who agree to teach in low-performing schools; and
- Expanding credential portability by ensuring licenses for NBCTs who transfer from another state to low-performing schools.

SRI International’s report suggests that school districts should:

- Encourage unions to negotiate new compensation structures and transfer and assignment procedures that encourage NBCTs to choose the most challenging schools;
- Rededicate their efforts, and redirect some of their resources to rectifying working condition disparities between high- and low-performing schools;
- Develop and implement targeted support programs for National Board candidates who already teach in low-performing schools; and
- Structure compensation so that NBCTs who agree to accept assignments in low-performing schools receive a salary boost.

The NBPTS was launched in 1987 as the cutting edge of the teacher quality movement. Established to create rigorous standards in order to produce highly accomplished teachers, Board Certification by the NBPTS is meant to bring teaching more in line with other professions in which state licensing boards set minimum standards and the profession sets standards for advanced certification to identify skilled practice. Employing findings about effective teaching, the Board designed research-based professional standards called the Five Core Propositions. These five standards for the teaching occupation are:

- Teachers are committed to students and their learning.
- Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students.
- Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning.
- Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.
- Teachers are members of learning communities.

Teachers who apply for National Board Certification must wade through a demanding process. National Board Certification is neither achieved through a mere paper-and-pencil test, nor through an assessment of a single facet of teaching. Instead, the teacher applicant is evaluated on their subject matter knowledge and must submit a professional portfolio, which includes a videotaped exemplar of the candidate’s teaching, an explanation of his or her instructional choices, multiple examples of student work, a description of the way in which the work was analyzed, actions taken to remediate students’ academic deficiencies and a review of students’ subsequent progress. Designed to assess everything from the teacher candidate’s knowledge of the discipline to their ability to diagnose and “treat” students’ learning needs, National Board Certification is a prestigious honor, designating those teachers who attain it, valuable members of their school community.

For SRI International’s full report please visit:
http://www.teachingquality.org/resources/pdfs/NBCT_policy_paper.pdf

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