Perhaps Governor Sonny Perdue’s spokesman, Bert Brantley, shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe he shouldn’t have given ammunition to those who said this was a political decision by Perdue, not an economic one. But then again, the governor’s office was pressed with this question: How could the Governor deprive National Board certified teachers (NBCTs) of their hard-earned bonuses, which had, for nearly a decade, been provided by the state as a reward for their hard work? Surely, something less important could have been cut from the budget.

Brantley’s response appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in late September: “This is a certification process that is not tied to any student achievement… philosophically, do you reward [student] achievement and performance, or certification and training?”

Perdue’s budget recommendation—and Brantley’s subsequent justification of it—set off a wave of responses by Georgia’s NBCTs, one of them in the form of a lawsuit filed by five teachers on behalf of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators (PAGE). In the face of the cuts, many of Georgia’s NBCTs took to defending the certification process offered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS).

Roughly 74,000 teachers nationwide are certified by NBPTS, a nonprofit organization founded in 1987 “to advance the quality of teaching and learning by developing professional standards for accomplished teaching.” Only 2.1 percent of Georgia’s 120,660 public school teachers are National Board certified.

As it turns out, the state legislature didn’t completely cut the bonuses out of the budget, as Perdue had recommended. Instead, Georgia’s NBCTs will now get a reduced annual bonus of 6 percent of their salaries. The Georgia Department of Education indicated that counties should receive funds to pay out the bonuses in November. [See sidebar for more details on teacher pay.]

Still, the change poses new financial problems for teachers who have structured their own budgets around the expectation of a 10 percent bonus. In addition, Brantley’s qualitative assessment of the certification has been, to some teachers, salt rubbed in a wound.

In defending the program, many NBCTs invoke memories of the Herculean effort they had to muster to become certified. “The certification is not an easy one,” wrote Oconee County High School English teacher Lynne Ely in an email to Flagpole. She mentioned that the undertaking—“a grueling 100-page ‘box’ of reflection on my teaching, evidence of student work, documentation of my work and videotape of my teaching”—is a daunting task for teachers who already work well above 40 hours a week grading papers and constructing lesson plans. Ely also pointed out the certification’s $2,500 price tag (teachers can be reimbursed for up to $2,000), as well as her having spent many nights, weekends and holidays completing the year-long process.

Most NBCTs consider the cuts a violation of a “promise” first made by Governor Roy Barnes when he pushed through legislation which raised the bonus from 5 percent (first established by Governor Zell Miller) to 10 percent.

“Having the state of Georgia renege on its promise to me after all my hard work on the certification process was a severe blow to both my professional identity and my financial well-being,” wrote Stacy Blomquist in an email to Flagpole. Blomquist, an NBCT at Oconee County High, said that the main reason she became certified with the National Board, rather than pursue a higher college degree, was the financial incentive.

Ms. Ely echoed the importance of the incentive and said that she would not object to a change in the program due to budget concerns, “but to withdraw it from teachers who have already earned it… seems to me in breach of good faith.”

Bert Brantley responded with an assessment of the grim financial landscape, reminding that NBCTs were not the only ones to have had promises broken. “Teachers that were furloughed were ‘promised’ a salary; state employees who were laid off were ‘promised’ a job,” he said, adding that the state’s budgetary crisis “is literally historic. It’s not hyperbole. We’ve never seen revenue reductions like this in the state’s history.”

Brantley mentioned that he received a number of critical emails after his remarks to the AJC went to print. “It’s clear that it’s a rigorous program that provides benefits,” he said of the certification, mentioning that he has many friends who are NBCTs themselves. Still, he did not retreat from his earlier statement: rather, he attempted to bolster it by linking it to Washington, pointing out that President Obama has endorsed “merit-based” bonuses that reward “student achievement,” or in other words, higher student test scores. He said the correlation between NBPTS certification and “student achievement” is, statistically speaking, quite small.

Not all educators are convinced that test scores are the best indicator of student progress, however. “If that’s the only measure that we’ve got out there, then that’s problematic,” said Peg Graham, an associate professor in the University of Georgia’s College of Education. Graham was a high school teacher for 17 years before coming to Athens and was also part of an NBPTS “expert panel” which encouraged teacher certification. She disagrees with the criticism that the certification process doesn’t necessarily improve teachers—that it merely identifies the above-average ones. “It did indeed change teachers,” she said, adding that even though the financial incentive was the prime motivator for NBCTs, “the byproduct of that was an extraordinary professional development experience.” According to Graham, the only “negative” effect of the certification is that “every single bit of it implies that you need to work harder, that you need to do more.”

Georgia’s NBCTs may not have to endure the cuts for long. The campaign office of Roy Barnes, the former governor and Democratic frontrunner to regain his old seat in next year’s election, confirmed that Barnes would try to reinstitute the 10 percent bonus if he were elected. (This is unsurprising, given that Barnes recently completed a six-year stint as chair of the NBPTS Board of Directors.) Republican frontrunner John Oxendine also released a statement opposing the cuts, but when pressed by Flagpole, his campaign manager could not promise that Oxendine would try to undo the current cuts; he would only say that no new cuts to teacher’s salaries would be proposed.

It is also possible that PAGE’s lawsuit will be successful, negating the unappetizing prospect of waiting on Georgia legislators. Whether that success comes in the form of a court verdict or capitulation is yet to be seen. Tim Callahan, spokesman for PAGE, said it’s possible that state legislators, under considerable new pressure, may restore full funding for the bonuses in the January supplemental budget. “We’ve heard rumors that they’ve had second thoughts,” Callahan said.

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Want to Teach in Georgia?

Currently, Georgia’s teacher salaries rank 17th highest in the nation. Below are the “base rates” for teachers in Georgia based on educational degree. (This is assuming the teacher has some prior experience; beginning teachers can expect to be paid roughly $2,000 less than the figures below.)

• Bachelor's: $33,424
  
• Master's: $38,438
  
• Specialist: $43,435
  
• Doctorate: $48,213
  

As far as pay raises go: in your first three years, there would be none. Then, during years four to nine, you would receive roughly a $1,000 raise every year. As you moved into a decade of teaching, the $1,000 raises would come every two years. The state’s guarantee of a raise ends at the beginning of the 22nd year of teaching, but that is not to say the county couldn’t give you more money—Athens-Clarke County, as a policy, pays its teachers 7 percent more than the state base.

Jeff Gore