Program mentors teachers
ESU Media Relations
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Over 70 percent of educators mentored through a program at Emporia State University in 2007-08 achieved the highest honor of the teaching profession. Twenty-seven Kansas educators, including two from Emporia, earned national certification from The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards during the 2007-08 school year.
“Teachers who pursue National Board Certification are working to attain the highest level of professional recognition,” said Ken Weaver, interim dean of The Teachers College at ESU. “They reflect daily on their teaching effectiveness as defined by how well their students learn. They submit evidence from student learning and other professional activities to demonstrate that they meet the highest standards in the profession. Emporia State University and The Teachers College congratulate the teachers who have met this benchmark of excellence!”
The process a teacher goes through to gain the certification is one of the main ways the teaching profession recognizes excellence among its ranks. Roger Caswell, director of Emporia State University ’s Great Plains Center for National Teacher Certification in the Jones Institute for Educational Excellence, guides teachers through the year-long process.
“Teachers who ultimately receive a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certificate show they have met high and rigorous professional standards through peer review,” said Caswell.
Both Sherry Nelson and Randy Wells, physical education teachers at Emporia High School, were mentored through the ESU program and earned national certification.
With the new national board certified teachers, Kansas now has a total of 297 national board certified teachers in the state’s schools. In Kansas, 72 percent of the teachers who received assistance from the ESU program in 2007-08 attained the certification in their first year of attempting it. This 72 initial certification rate is 30 to 40 points above the initial certification rate nationally.
National Board Certification is the highest credential in the teaching profession. A voluntary process established by NBPTS, certification is achieved through a rigorous performance-based assessment that takes between one and three years to complete and measures what accomplished teachers and school counselors should know and be able to do.
The program for providing professional support for the certification has been available at ESU since 1993.
Nationwide, 9,600 teachers attained their national board certification in 2008, bringing the total number of national board certified teachers to nearly 74,000.