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The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) offers teachers opportunities to demonstrate that they are accomplished teachers in relation to high and rigorous standards that delineate what teachers should know and be able to do. Teachers pursue National Board Certification voluntarily, and demonstrate accomplished teaching in a detailed portfolio that includes written analyses of student work, videotaped lessons with accompanying commentaries about those videos, and documentations of the teachers’ outreach to families and professional communities. Teachers’ content knowledge is also assessed in their certificate areas through computer-based assessment exercises. This process of advanced certification is currently available in twenty-four certificate areas for teachers in specific grade levels and subjects. For reasons yet to be understood, African American teachers attain National Board Certification at rates significantly below other groups of teachers. African American teachers certify at a rate of 11 to 18% while White teachers certify at a rate of 44 to 51% (Bond, 1998; NBPTS, 2001). The most puzzling aspect of this disparity is that an analysis of the characteristics of the candidates revealed no significant difference between the preparation and ability of African American and White candidates (Bond, 1998).
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Click on the image above to hear from Angela Cobb, a National Board Candidate.
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Video Interview of NB Candidates Click on the image above to hear NB Certified Teachers Yvonne Hutchinson and Renee Moore describe their experiences with the National Board certification process.
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As an African American National Board Certified Teacher, the Co-Director of the UCLA National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Project, and a Carnegie Foundation Scholar, I have been conducting research about this issue of “adverse impact” and ways to mitigate this trend through targeted support to African American teacher candidates. In my research, I have come to realize that this issue is extremely complex and multifaceted. It has been very difficult—if not impossible—to assign responsibility for the different certification rates to one isolated factor. I believe this research is critical in light of the fact that there exists an achievement gap between African American and White teachers pursuing National Board Certification. To address the needs that appear to be unique to African American teachers, I have been collaborating with the California Alliance of African American Educators (CAAAE) to provide a supplementary program of support to African American candidates in UCLA’s NBPTS Project. The CAAAE has dedicated itself to increasing the numbers of African American NBCTs both in California and nationwide. This collaboration provided an essential context for these supplementary meetings. By providing more frequent meetings in smaller peer-alike groups, the supplementary support program provides candidates more opportunities for interaction and discourse. Teachers are able to more carefully examine and reflect upon their practice, and engage in deeper analyses of instructional plans, portfolio entries, and videotapes. Honest feedback, offered in a space that is “safe” for open, candid discussion helps teachers engage in dialogue about their experiences pursuing National Board Certification.
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Both independently and in collaboration with others at UCLA’s Center X, I have conducted literature reviews and examined research about several of these facets. I offer the following possible explanations for this adverse impact: 1. It is possible that there is a disconnect between the written discourse values of the National Board and the working knowledge and oral tradition of African American candidates (Burroughs, Schwartz, & Hendricks-Lee, 2000) 2. There may be a realistic fear of failure among African American candidates that adversely impacts their performance. (Bond, 1998, Burroughs, Schwartz, Hendricks-Lee, 2000) 3. “Stereotype Threat” may be at play for African American candidates. Stereotype Threat is a condition identified and studied by Stanford University’s Claude Steele in which African American college students who perceived that their academic abilities were being judged based on their race, performed less well than their White peers. (Claude Steele, 1999) 4. The candidates may have difficulty translating tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, since tacit knowledge is highly personal and hard to formalize (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) 5. Among these candidates, there may be insufficient participation in supportive, discursive learning communities to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge (Wenger, 1995 and Fullan, 2000)
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Over the next three years, this project will be supported by a grant from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
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