National Board Certification: Are We Seeing a Backlash, a Trend, or Just Noise?

A few weeks back I wrote about how Florida is backing off of its support for teachers going after their National Board Certification. The most recent hit comes from Michelle Rhee in Washington DC:

But budget uncertainties, labor tensions and the timetable for the program's rollout have sparked questions from teachers' advocates about its effectiveness. At the same time, Rhee has dropped the school system's direct support for instructors seeking certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a rigorous one- to three-year teacher development program, citing a lack of evidence that the training improves student achievement.

If it was just Florida you could shrug it off, but with DC following behind in such short order it sort of starts to look like a trend. When the budget rubber meets the road districts are saying pretty clearly that paying additional money for Board certification isn't worth it, and getting to the bottom of why they feel that way is a pretty important thing to do.

For more on Rhee dropping the NBPTS check out Eduwonkette and the DC Examiner.