Washington State Leads the Country

Washington State Leads the Country in New Nationally Certified Teachers

On Dec. 17, 2013, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards announced more than 4,000 teachers nationwide have achieved National Board Certification.  And 516 of those new NBC teachers are in Washington state, the largest number of any of the 50 states.  California, which has 5.5 times as many people as Washington, is second with only 346. Nationwide, 7,259 of 106,000 NBC certified teachers work in Washington state.   That’s second only to Florida, which has about three times our population less than twice as many NBC teachers.

Rigorous Performance-based, Peer-reviewed Process

NBC certification demonstrates the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully prepare students for 21st century careers.  To date, more than 106,000 teachers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia have achieved the profession’s highest mark of accomplishment through a rigorous, performance-based, peer-review process.

Established in 1987

The National Board was established in 1987 in response to the 1983 “Nation at Risk” report.  The Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy convened a task force of policy makers, educators, union leaders, and business leaders. In their report,  “A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century”, the task force argued that in order to have schools that would prepare students for the demands of the 21st century, the nation’s teachers would have to better trained and supported. A Nation Prepared provided specific suggestions for strengthening standards in teaching and professionalizing the teaching workforce. Subsequently, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was created to implement the report’s core recommendations.

Built From Teacher Expertise

The original 63-member board of directors, two-thirds of whom were teachers, set out to pursue a ambitious mission of advancing student learning and achievement by establishing the definitive standards of accomplished teaching and the process by which the profession would certify whether or not a teacher had met those standards. National Board’s founding funders and stakeholders envisioned a structure for teaching that had been central to elevating the standards and status of other professions. In professions such as law and medicine, practitioners have a primary role in determining standards of entry, practice and advancement.

http://www.nbpts.org/who-we-are