Even more big guns were brought out by the Education Commission of the States (ECS) to evaluate a small study that examined the effectiveness of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) in Tennessee. That study (actually a 4-page brief followed by 4 pages of data), by J.E. Stone of East Tennessee State University and the Education Consumers' Clearinghouse, analyzed the value-added achievement gains produced by NBPTS-certified teachers in Tennessee, as generated by the much-vaunted Tennessee Value Added Assessment System. [For more about Stone's study, see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=58#846.]
Stone found that none of the 16 Board-certified teachers who teach in grades 3-8 in Tennessee met a standard for exceptional teaching. (That standard was producing 115 percent of a year's academic growth in their local school system in three core subjects over three years, a standard now used to identify exceptional teachers in a new incentive program in Chattanooga. [For more about the program, see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=65#963.])
ECS asked four prominent scholars to examine the Stone study: Dominic Brewer, Susan Fuhrman, Robert Linn, and Ana Maria Villegas. (We hope ECS will continue this admirable practice of asking independent scholars to review all future studies of the effectiveness of the NBPTS, not just short briefs produced by board critics.) The reviewers complained that it was unclear how the 16 teachers were selected for the study and expressed concern that the teachers included in the study might not be representative of Board-certified teachers in Tennessee, but Stone's study makes clear that the 16 teachers are the only Board certified teachers in Tennessee who teach in grades 3-8. (Value-added scores are not available for Tennessee teachers in other grades.)
The reviewers' main concern is that teacher value-added scores jump around from year to year and vary significantly by subject and school district. Volatility of gain scores does present a challenge for efforts to identify effective teachers this way. But Stone looks at both averages and scores from individual years in his analysis, and no matter what angle he used, Board-certified teachers simply didn't produce exceptional gains in student learning. The Tennessee testing system is not perfect, and it would have been helpful to know more about the distribution of exemplary and deficient scores among the general teaching population in Tennessee, but it does not appear that Tennessee's Board-certified teachers are setting records for the value they add to student achievement.
While none of the Board-certified teachers in Tennessee was able to meet the standard set by Chattanooga for exceptional teaching, at least four teachers of 4th or 5th grade in Chattanooga did meet that standard, according to Ken Jordan, a special assistant to Mayor Bob Corker. Those four teachers applied and were selected to teach in high-need elementary schools in the district after they submitted evidence that they had produced gains of at least 115 percent of one year's growth in three core subjects over three years.
"The Value-Added Achievement Gains of NBPTS-Certified Teachers in Tennessee: A Brief Report," by J.E. Stone is available at http://www.education-consumers.com/briefs/stoneNBPTS.shtm.
To read the Fuhrman synthesis of reviews of the Stone study commissioned by ECS, go to http://www.education-consumers.com/briefs/ECS review.htm.
For a response by J.E. Stone, go to http://www.education-consumers.com/briefs/Response to ECS.htm.