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National-Board Teachers Found to Be Effective

Teachers who earn advanced certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards are more effective than teachers without that credential, but there’s little evidence to show the program has transformed the field in the broader ways its founders envisioned, a long-awaited report released today by a national scientific panel finds.

The Arlington, Va.-based standards board, created in 1987, has received more than $100 million in federal funds to develop and run a system of assessments for recognizing accomplished teachers. And some states offer teachers financial incentives for earning the voluntary national certification. Between 2003 and 2007, the program awarded its certification status to more than 63,800 teachers across the country.

In the new report, however, a 17-member panel of the National Research Council says it’s still unclear whether the process itself leads to better-quality teaching, because too few studies have examined that issue. Beyond the classroom, the panel adds, some research suggests that schools are not yet making full use of the expertise of teachers who qualify for the credential, and that the teachers themselves, once they earn the credential, often move on to schools...