Students do better if their teachers have certification

A new national report released on Wednesday finds that students do better academically when their teachers receive certification from a program that is heavily promoted in North Carolina.

A report from the National Research Council found that students taught by teachers who received national board certification make greater gains on tests than students taught by teachers without such certification.

But the report, which was commissioned by Congress, cautions that it's not clear whether the national certification process itself leads to higher-quality teaching.

"[Certification] is an effective way to identify highly skilled teachers," said Milton Hakel, chairman of the committee that released the report.

Created in 1987, the nonprofit National Board for Professional Teaching Standards developed standards for what effective teachers should know and be able to do, along with a process to evaluate whether individual teachers meet these criteria.

North Carolina became a major backer of the effort, spending $60.5 million to promote the program to the state' s public schoolteachers. The state pays the $2,500 cost for teachers to go through the process to be certified. Once certified, teachers receive an annual 12 percent increase in their salary.

Of the nation's nearly 64,000 nationally board certified teachers, North Carolina has 12,770, the most of any state.

Bill Ferriter, a nationally board certified teacher and 2005 Wake County teacher of the year, called the state's backing of the program an "intelligent investment."

If not for the program, Ferriter said, he doesn't think he'd still be a classroom teacher after 15 years.

"I'm constantly looking for ways to improve myself, which is not something that I can say I did before I became certified," said Ferriter, who teaches at Salem Middle School in Apex.

But Terry Stoops, an education policy analyst for the John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh think tank, questioned the value of the state's subsidizing the program so much.

"I don't think you can say only the very best teachers are receiving national board certification," Stoops said. "There are teachers who are doing it for the additional money. They're finding a way to game the system."

The study found there is some evidence that board-certified teachers remain in teaching at higher rates than uncertified ones.

Hakel said it's not his place to say whether it's wise for states to invest in the program as heavily as North Carolina. He said further research on the program is needed.