We study the effectiveness of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) in Washington State, which has one of the largest populations of National Board-Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in the nation. Based on value-added models in math and reading, we find that NBPTS-certified teachers are about 0.01-0.05…

Purpose: The study investigates the ways in which principals engage with, and attend to, the data-driven accountability measures of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and local mandates. Theoretical framework: The study is framed with the notion of "assemblage", a term often associated with actor-network theory (ANT)--a theory that focuses…

An overview of positive and negative potential effects of the setting of compulsory exit-level standards in literacy and numeracy for students completing their final years of schooling is presented. The overview rests on studies completed primarily outside Australia, reflecting the reality of such practices not having been implemented widely in…

Two forms of assessment, summative and formative, are the primary means by which teachers determine student progress and achievement. Summative assessments help teachers determine what students have learned at the end of a unit of instruction. They are often used to help teachers determine whether their instruction was effective or to grade…

Some form of a short interrupted time series (ITS) is often used to evaluate state and national programs. An ITS design with a single treatment group assumes that the pretest functional form can be validly estimated and extrapolated into the postintervention period where it provides a valid counterfactual. This assumption is problematic. Ambiguous…

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of National Board Certified Teachers on student performance on Mississippi's Subject Area Testing Program (SATP) English II assessment, an end-of-course exam that assesses 10th grade students in Mississippi school districts. The researcher sought to determine if there was a statistically…

Advanced certification through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is an effective way to identify highly skilled teachers, according to a congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. Students taught by NBPTS-certified teachers make greater gains on achievement tests than students taught by…

This paper reports on a study of the current state of the art in teaching assessment. The major goal of the study was to examine a sample of assessment systems and then develop a specification for a state-of the art performance assessment system to be used for human capital management functions. The authors hope was that this specification would…

President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have called for national "common core" curriculum standards. Some have argued that national standards are essential for reform, as they provide coherence, rigor, logic and organization. Others have contended they will narrow the curriculum, seize control from local districts and states, and…

In this study, we consider the efficacy of a relatively new and widely accepted certification system for teachers established by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). We utilize an extensive database covering the universe of teachers and students in Florida for a four-year span to determine the relationship between NBPTS…

The state of Oklahoma and the federal government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade in pursuit of expanding the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) as a means of ensuring highly qualified teachers for every student. This study aimed to discover whether or not there was any relationship between…

This report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) presents results from the Trial Urban District Assessment in science. Science results are based on representative samples of fourth- and eighth-grade public school students from the 17 urban districts that volunteered to participate in the 2009 assessment. Between 900 and…

A significant amount of attention has been given to the predictors of academic achievement in higher education. However, the vast majority of articles have centred on entrance criteria and the learning approaches or personal habits of students. Investigations into how achievement depends on student efforts, being almost invariably based on…

This study examined whether having a teacher with National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification improves student achievement. The study analyzed data on about 3,800 second through fifth grade students taught by 198 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Study data were from 2003-04 and 2004-05. The authors…

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) assesses teaching practice based on videos and essays submitted by teachers. We compared the performance of classrooms of elementary students in Los Angeles randomly assigned to NBPTS applicants and to comparison teachers. We used information on whether each applicant achieved…