Selected Projects

The Relationship Between National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certification and Student Achievement

Sponsor: National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

Many states and districts are adopting targeted compensation policies to attract higher quality candidates into the teaching profession and to encourage increases in productivity among current teachers. For instance, many school systems have started to award pay increases or bonuses to teachers who complete the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certificaiton process. But the practice has been questioned, in part because of a lack of empirical evidence that NBC is an effective signal of teaching quality. CNA Education used data from a large urban school district to examine the association between student gains in mathematics in the ninth and tenth grades, NBPTS certification, and other indicators of teacher quality. Based on a variety of different specifications and student subsamples, we find robust evidence that NBPTS certificationis an effective indicator of teacher quality.

Read the full report

A 2008 National Research Council/National Academies of Science reports that empirical studies show that students taught by National Board Certified teachers had higher test gains than those taught by other teachers. The report posits that the some of difference in academic performance could be attributable to the National Board certification process, though the authors found insufficient evidence to support or refute this hypothesis. 

To follow up on its earlier research, CNA Education is gathering and analyzing additional data to test this hypothesis. Using a longitudinal analysis design, CNA is studying the professional development benefits of the certification process, as measured by growth in test scores of the students of NBCTs relative to non-NBCTs, as teachers apply, participate and complete the certification process. A quantitative analysis of instructional practices in middle and high school science classes will accompany the analysis.

Read the National Research Council/National Academies of Science report