NBPTS Upgrades Profession, Most Agree, Despite Test-Score Letdown

Back when the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was launched in 1987, most of the talk in its favor cited one overarching problem: the weakness of the teaching profession. If professional standards were better defined, if professional rewards were greater, the argument went, schools and learning would improve.

These days, such improvement is still the goal. But rather than entertaining broad theories about what would lead to it, policymakers and the public are increasingly riveted on student test scores. And that has been at best a mixed blessing for the NBPTS, which last month found itself in an embarrassing fix as it tried to downplay the very study that it had at one time portrayed as the answer to those who zeroed in on scores.

The research, conducted at the board’s behest by William L. Sanders of the SAS Institute in Cary, N.C., concluded that nationally certified teachers were not significantly better than others when it came to growth in student achievement. ( "Under Pressure, NBPTS Releases Full Study," ...