[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 46 (Friday, March 21, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E547-E548]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




NATIONAL BOARD-CERTIFIED TEACHERS IN LOW-PERFORMING SCHOOLS ACT OF 2003

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                          HON. SUSAN A. DAVIS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 20, 2003

  Mrs. DAVIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce the 
National Board-Certified Teacher in Low-Performing Schools Act of 2003 
to place these highly skilled teachers

[[Page E548]]

as facilitators in low-income low-performing schools.
  A huge challenge for our schools is to help low-achieving students 
improve their academic performance. How do we make this happen? Many 
studies have shown that the single most critical component for a 
child's success is the quality of each teacher.
  Districts across the country are struggling with ways to comply with 
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, H.R. 1, known as the No 
Child Left Behind Act of 2001. It requires that every classroom will 
have a highly-qualified teacher, but the definition of ``highly-
qualified'' is not clear. The road to creating more highly skilled 
teachers is also unclear.
  However, we do know that teachers who have successfully completed the 
rigorous, standards-based teaching evaluation and testing program run 
by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards are `highly 
qualified.' What we need to do is to encourage more of these highly 
accomplished teachers to seek positions in the most needy schools. Low-
income, low-performing schools typically have newly hired teachers, 
many of whom are not fully credentialed or trained in teaching skills.
  In California, I authored legislation to reward successful National 
Board candidates with a $10,000 merit award. One result of this 
recognition has been that this year the number of successful candidates 
was ten times the number in 1998, when the legislation was passed. In 
addition, the state gives an annual $5000 pay incentive for four years 
to each National Board Certified Teacher who seeks assignment to a low-
performing school.
  I propose to build on this method of providing incentives to urge 
these highly accomplished teachers to provide not only their fine 
teaching skills but also their availability as peers for the many new 
teachers assigned to these schools.
  Both beginning teachers and experienced teachers can grow in their 
teaching skills and can be inspired to accept the challenge of the 
certification process to demonstrate this growth if they have the 
opportunity to work as a peer with a National Board Certified Teacher. 
Many teachers who have become certified report that the process itself 
improves their skills, as they must prepare standards-based, self-
reflective portfolios of their teaching practices to submit for 
evaluation.
  Therefore, I propose a pilot program for five years to pay up to 100 
National Board Certified Teachers, each of whom is teaching in a low-
income, low-performing school, $5000 per year to act as a resident 
facilitator to introduce the members of the faculty to the National 
Board evaluation progress. As a teacher must have taught for three 
years before applying for Board certification, the five-year period is 
needed to allow time for new teachers to be exposed to the process 
through the outreach program initiated by the facilitator.
  The responsibilities of the facilitator would be to promote peer 
teacher participation and to work with the National Board for 
Professional Teaching Standards to recommend ways to encourage teachers 
to aspire to Board certification.
  The facilitator would also receive a $1000 bonus stipend for each 
teacher who completes the process for becoming Board--certified at the 
school for which the recipient is the resident facilitator.
  I believe that this pilot program can be a triple winner. The 
children of the low-performing school have another teacher who is 
clearly a highly qualified teacher. The faculty of that school has a 
peer teacher with identifiable teaching skills as a resource. And the 
school may grow its own crop of National Board Certified Teachers thus 
changing the image of being a low-performing school to the image of 
being a school with a highly-accomplished faculty.

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