National Board Certification
December 2007
...Several teachers from our school have pending applications to become National Board certified. Today is the day that their results came out. Today is the day that I learned that National Board Certification is a big fat joke on the American Public School System. Despite the program’s ambitious aim to reward stellar teachers, I realized today that lousy teachers can easily become certified, while great teachers can be rejected and ignored.
You don’t have to be an excellent teacher to become National Board Certified; you just have to create an excellent application portfolio. You can be a loser teacher and become certified! All you need is one good buddy who passed in a previous year to hand over their old portfolio, and then--voila! Throw in a few good videos of yourself teaching a lesson, rewrite your old buddy’s information to match your own, and there you have it- the prestige of being a National Board Certified teacher. What bullshit! Mrs. Frankenstein, who thinks that Alaska is a part of Canada, passed the National Boards today. Esther, who confuses her students with stories of Harriet Tubman building a railroad and thinks that the word legal is a noun, has been a National Board Certified teacher for years. What a joke! On the other hand, wonderful teachers like Caroline, who engage their students on a regular basis and teach phenomenal lessons, are rejected for certification. How ridiculous! I can’t believe that the National Board Certification committee doesn’t realize the holes in their program.
I have lost all respect for those who brag about being certified. Losers can get certified and master teachers can be rejected. The title holds no true standard of excellence.
Of course, now that I have figured out the system, I will definitely apply for National Board Certification. (If I am still a teacher in three years!) Not for the prestige of the award, but because I want the money.
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