National Board Certification and Student Achievement in Title I Schools

Abstract

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 teachers who attained the National Board Certification and higher student achievement in Title I schools over one academic school year. The researcher examined the reading and math benchmark scores of 610 third, fourth, and fifth grade students in 16 Title I schools from an urban fringe school district. The purpose was to measure the differential achievement effect attributed to National Board Certified Teachers (NBCT). Results suggested that NBCT was not a significant predictor of student achievement among students in the sample.