A Washington State program that provides bonuses to teachers who earn national certification and agree to teach in hard-to-staff schools is yielding mixed results, according to a new report.
Under the program, teachers can get $5,000 for earning certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, based in Arlington, Va. Once certified, they can receive another $5,000 for moving to low-income schools.
While the number of nationally certified teachers across the state tripled from 2007 to 2010, the report says, bonuses failed to draw many of those teachers to hard-to-staff schools. One percent of NBPTS-certified teachers move from low-poverty to high-poverty schools each year, according to the brief by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Gov. Christine Gregoire, in her budget for fiscal 2011-13, has proposed suspending $99.5 million in funding for the program.
