S.C. teachers' certification bonuses questioned

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Marianne Boyd is the teacher of the year at Kelly Mill Middle School in Blythewood and just received her certified by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards last month. The sixth grade social studies teacher is one of 360 announced this week, making South Carolina the state with the third largest number of nationally certified teachers. But not everyone in the education community thinks that’s helping the state’s students.

Boyd said there’s no doubt in her mind that the two-year process made her a better teacher, by forcing reflection and improvement on her techniques.

“It’s a lot of what do I do, why do I do it and how does it impact the students,” Boyd said. “It made me look at the students and see how can I come across and teach them what I want to teach them but in a better more engaging way, and to challenge them, and so I think when I teach now, I look at different ways to do things and look at how to bring out the most in the students, as well as myself.”

She said the time-consuming process was equal to completing graduate school and that putting in the hours took sacrifice. To focus on bettering her lesson plans and writing application entries she even quarantined herself in a hotel room from time to time, to ward of the distractions of her home, husband and three young children.

But her commitment was rewarded.

South Carolina teachers receive a $5,000 a year bonus, for ten years after attaining national board certification. Prior to 2009 it was $7,500 a year, and the number of teachers applying has decreased because of the change.

But state Education Superintendent Mick Zais has recommended to Gov. Nikki Haley’s staff that when they draft a budget, they leave out bonus money for teachers applying for certification starting next year.

Education department spokesman Jay W. Ragley said that Zais wants to honor the commitment to teachers who already did the program, but doesn’t think the $65 million the state spent on the incentives this year is paying off.

“The National Board Certification tends to attract the best teachers already, and they get more training through it, and it also seems to call out teachers that frankly aren’t’ effective in the classroom,” Ragley said. “But when it comes down to student achievement the results haven’t been there. It might be useful professional development for teachers, but it doesn’t have the effect on student achievement we all hope for.”

Their decision is based on a 2008 Harvard study that showed that “those who achieve certification were not statistically significantly more effective than non-applicants.”

Ragley said Zais would rather see teachers rewarded for positive student outcomes, in a “pay for performance” model. He noted that the state Education Oversight Committee came to the same conclusion in 2009.

But Palmetto State Teachers Association director Kathy Maness worries that plan isn’t working in other states and that to get teacher support bonuses would need to be based on more than standardized tests.

She said that her son has a traumatic brain injury and might not show a lot of improvement in his test scores this year. But she thinks his third grade teacher is “one of the hardest working, most effective teachers in the state,” and wouldn’t want her salary affected by test scores.

She also said that in addition to giving teachers the most intensive professional development available, it gives them incentive to keep teaching.

“Before National Board bonuses, the only way you could get a bump in salary was to become an administrator. Now they’re becoming better teachers and staying in the classroom instead of leaving to become admins,” Maness said.

Maness bragged about the amazing test score improvements her colleague Craig King’s students achieved when he went through the certification process at a low-income school in Orangeburg.

He said he saw the effects of better teaching not only on scantrons, but in the students’ drive to learn.

“I was a good teacher before getting National Board certified,” King said, “but I became a great teacher.”

There are several other studies that confirm what Maness and King believe: that a better quality teacher means better educated students.

Ragley said National Board Certification doesn’t directly effect student scores, and that South Carolina shouldn’t pay teachers for a particular input, but the desired output.

But Boyd said that’s exactly what the process forced her to prove: that her teaching helped specific students improve.

“I always incorporated writing, but I don’t necessarily look at the growth of students as writers, but the National Board process forced me to look at two specific students and how I developed them as writers,” Boyd said. “I had to ask myself ‘are you really growing them as writers?’ and then show the proof.”

Boyd didn’t pass the certification on the first try, but said that it gave her a real push to think outside the box, try new ideas and keep changing her techniques to incorporate new technology and tailor her lessons to different classes and individuals’ needs.

She said the positive effects on her students will last long after her last bonus check is cashed.

For Zais to get his preferred changes to the bonus system, the General Assembly will have to alter the proviso in next year’s state budget and Haley will have to sign off.