Research shows that children learn better when teachers have a specific type of training – the ‘gold standard’ of National Board Certification.

But dramatically fewer teachers in Alabama achieved that license during the pandemic – slowing the progress of what had been strong growth year over year, according to a state report tracking the impact of increased state funding for incentives last year.

“A student learns one to two months more being in a national board certified teacher’s classroom,” Alabama NBCT Network President Krista Marcum told AL.com.

Beyond becoming a better teacher, board certification has monetary perks, too.

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All national board certified teachers who are currently teaching in a classroom earn a $5,000 state-funded stipend, and beginning in 2018, those who teach certain subjects in hard-to-staff schools earn an additional state-funded $5,000 every year.

State lawmakers allocated more than $15 million for the current year to pay stipends and help grow the number of National Board Certified Teachers. Lawmakers began funding annual monetary stipends for NBCTs more than 20 years ago, but the current year’s allocation is the highest funding to date.

The number of Alabama teachers earning National Board Certification dropped to 135 in 2021, according to a report covering the 2021-22 school year. The Alabama Department of Education prepared the annual report for lawmakers ahead of the start of the legislative session.

That annual number is just over half of what it was two years ago.

The state’s 1,700 NBCTs aren’t evenly distributed across the state. Of Alabama’s 139 school districts, 18 districts – most in rural areas – had no NBCTs last year. Another 20 districts had only one NBCT in the entire district. Fifteen districts have two NBCTs.

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Chairman Travis Bristol said while having one or two NBCTs in a school is good, learning is really only improved for the students in those one or two classrooms.

“To create school transformation, you’re going to need to have a cluster of teachers,” he said, “and that’s something that the state could create some incentives around.”

Alabama’s $5,000 targeted supplement aims to attract NBCTs to hard to staff, high poverty schools.

And while the targeted supplement hasn’t proven to be a magnet, the number of board certified teachers working in hard-to-staff schools and earning the additional $5,000 stipend rose slightly from 151 in 2020 to 156 in 2021.

Authors of the report called the targeted supplement a “wonderful incentive,” but claim only three districts – Huntsville City, Jefferson County and Mobile County moved NBCTs from a “non-failing school to a failing school.”

The number of teachers applying for state-funded scholarships to help with the $1,900 cost of becoming board certified dropped, too, from 332 in 2020 to 251 in 2021. Scholarships were awarded in four of the 18 school districts without NBCTs:

• Clarke County – 3 scholarships,
• Macon County – 1 scholarship,
• Perry County – 1 scholarship, and
• Phenix City – 3 scholarships.

Decline in interest?

The drop in interest in pursuing board certification was likely due to a number of factors, Marcum said.

“I feel like there was just a lot going on in our state at the time. Elementary teachers were working on LETRS [literacy training], and that was a huge endeavor,” Marcum said.

COVID played a part, too, she added. “I saw a lot of teachers trying to learn how to teach online. It was a lot.”

Alabama’s decline mirrored a national trend.

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Chairman Travis Bristol agreed there was a lot going on for teachers over the past couple of years.

“People were literally just trying to attend to their children,” he said. “I can imagine that many decided to, instead of attempting to pursue this application that is for them in service of their children, that they were just trying to ensure their children had some of the basic needs.”

He said he believes the numbers of new NBCT candidates will rebound moving forward.

And the latest numbers appear to support Bristol’s forecast. Alabama had 189 newly-certified NBCTs in 2022, according to newly released numbers. The next report will be issued in December.