As one of the new Nationally Board Certified teachers honored last week by the Obama administration, Jacquelyn Sticca of Chicago told her first-graders that she would not be there Wednesday because she was due at the White House.
Most of her students bombarded her with good wishes and questions, but one little girl pouted.
When Sticca asked her what was wrong, the child told her, “It’s not the same when you’re not here.”
“A great teacher makes the difference,” Sticca said. “Even a 6-year-old knows that.”
But there are no accepted markers yet for what is a great teacher, even though many states have treated board certification as a proxy.
There are 6,200 new Nationally Board Certified teachers, bringing the total to nearly 100,000. A voluntary program, board certification is often called the gold standard of teaching and is achieved through performance-based assessment and testing that takes one to three years to complete.
Gov. Roy Barnes was a strong advocate and created an incentive bonus to encourage teachers to earn the distinction, but support in the Legislature has waned over the years.
Lawmakers have expressed concerns that the evidence is not conclusive that the certification has a direct bearing on student achievement.
As part of the state’s Race to the Top grant, they want to adopt a value-added model that rewards teachers for demonstrable impact on student learning as measured by test scores and other yet-to-be-decided criteria.
On the 2010 session’s final day, the General Assembly passed a budget that eliminated pay supplements to the 2,500 Georgia educators who earned certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
The General Assembly’s decision amounted to a $6,000 to $8,000 hit for some of the state’s top teachers. It is likely now that fewer Georgia teachers will seek the certification as the process costs more than $2,000.
The Legislature’s action was met with widespread condemnation from teachers and teacher groups, one of which unsuccessfully sued the state.
As one teacher said to me: “It’s a shame that these people were promised this stipend for going through a very rigorous course load to receive this certification. It isn’t easy to get, and in states like North Carolina, is preferred for certain job titles. I’ve been seriously looking at how this issue is being handled in neighboring states, and Georgia is the only one I know of that cut the stipend entirely.”
The teacher called the decision a blow to the profession, saying, “Yet another reminder of the importance of education in a state that is struggling to pull itself up the achievement scale. The real shame is the demoralization of some excellent teachers.”
While the Georgia General Assembly may doubt the value of board certification, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan appears fully in support of it.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your commitment,” Duncan told the teachers at the White House event. It is one thing to tell students that they must be lifelong learners, but it is another to demonstrate it, he said.
“By definition, all of you are walking the walk,” Duncan said. “Thanks for the example you are setting not just for our students, but for our teachers.”
Duncan said the long-term answer to the economic challenges is education: raising graduation rates, reducing dropouts, and enhancing and elevating the profession.
“Education has been beaten down; teachers have been beaten down,” he said.
He won applause with his call to double teacher starting pay from $30,000 to $60,000 and to reward top teachers with six-figure salaries.
Some of the new Nationally Board Certified teachers spoke at the White House event. Robert Barnes, an exceptional needs specialist from Alabaster, Ala., said he was at the seven-year mark in his career and sought certification to avoid complacency.
He said certification taught him to ask every day, “Is what I am doing having a positive impact on student learning?”
“National Board Certification is not about perfection,” he said. “It is about improving, reflecting and constantly learning.”
Sticca, an early childhood generalist, said she now asks herself, “Is what I am doing working? How do I know it is working.”
She said the demanding process reaffirmed her commitment that “every first-grader who passes through my classroom deserves the very best from me.”
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