Anonymous
Post 12/15/2024 08:14     Subject: Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Anonymous wrote:Any MD teachers considering doing National Boards now that the extra pay will be added to salary and pensionable?


There was a 10 person cohort at my school. By late October, all of us dropped out. Some had person reasons, but mainly it was due to structural issues within our school.

1) 1/5-1/3 of parents in each class refusing to give permission to video tape.

2) Daily coverage due to a lack of subs steals your planning time and saps your will to do extra work writing up descriptions and analysis.

3) Excessive behavior issues mean that kids antiseptically bounced to your class destroy your lesson.

In addition, last summer’s classes meant to help with the process were agonizingly poorly taught. When I saw the same instructors were scheduled for this fall’s classes, I didn’t want to take them. Many in my cohort made the same decision.



Anonymous
Post 12/06/2024 23:10     Subject: Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Anonymous wrote:Any MD teachers considering doing National Boards now that the extra pay will be added to salary and pensionable?






OP here with an update... after two years, I just learned I certified!
Glad I attempted it.
Salary bump will definitely be appreciated, too.
Anonymous
Post 03/21/2024 17:35     Subject: Re:Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Ha ha ha

Blueprint has no funding. There won't be extra money for NBCT soon.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/03/20/blueprint-budget/?fbclid=IwAR1TLD8eUoBMY8Ve0qFtBYCp738JzQCWofwDlIaXI7ml2tyyK5LmwUOSdjA
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2023 17:59     Subject: Re:Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Anonymous wrote:I just fell down a rabbit hole looking at everything Pearson is up to.

Did you know they are running their own, "tuition free online charter school"?

https://www.connectionsacademy.com/program/cost

How are they running it tuition free? I saw an ad for "jobs for teachers" at Pearson. They will pay $19 an hour for a 9 hour day for "Family Enrollment Counselors" to enroll students in these schools. Who is funding this? Who is TEACHING this?


They take money from Public Ed because they are "charter.". They assign way more kids to each teacher than reasonable. And they are held to *none* of the same accountability measures as public schools last I checked. Horrible outcomes.

Look up the court case against them in CA where it was argued that these schools were actually hurting the bottom line of the state in the long run.
Anonymous
Post 06/14/2023 21:47     Subject: Re:Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Ah I see. They are operating as Virtual Charter Schools in states that allow such things.

They are hiring teachers certified within those states to teach the virtual classes. Pay for teachers is about $21/hour! Teachers can teach from home though...
Anonymous
Post 06/14/2023 21:29     Subject: Re:Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
I just fell down a rabbit hole looking at everything Pearson is up to.

Did you know they are running their own, "tuition free online charter school"?

https://www.connectionsacademy.com/program/cost

How are they running it tuition free? I saw an ad for "jobs for teachers" at Pearson. They will pay $19 an hour for a 9 hour day for "Family Enrollment Counselors" to enroll students in these schools. Who is funding this? Who is TEACHING this?
Anonymous
Post 06/14/2023 18:00     Subject: Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:NBCT must be raking in the cash...



I don't know - they are a non-profit. What about medical associations that certify doctors? For example, my neurologist is board certified. She is certified by the ABPN and the initial cost was $1900 for the exam. Is the APBN raking in the cash?

Or for NBCT, they outsource to Pearson to actually manage the exams and the scoring of the components. That's who is raking in the cash. But someone has to score the tests - for the medical boards too right?



I guarantee you that it's Pearson raking in the cash for medical boards testing too.

Some day in the future there will be textbooks dedicated to the stranglehold Pearson had on education in this era.


And that textbook will be published by .. Pearson.
Anonymous
Post 06/11/2023 08:38     Subject: Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Any MD teachers considering doing National Boards now that the extra pay will be added to salary and pensionable?

I had it before it was cool, but I started mentoring current candidates in my building last year.

PP I don't want to derail the thread but what do you think of the program? How does it compare with graduate studies and other PD programs? Does it help teachers become better at what they do?


I think the three biggest differences are that 1) you are planning, recording, and reflecting on your actual teaching not hypothetical teaching or theory, 2) you are forced to analyze how your own teaching moves (and broader teaching things like learning/collaborating/working with families) impact student achievement and success --which helps you tap into and refine what you can control instead of feeling overwhelmed by what you can't control, and 3) it really encourages peer conversations about the details and intended impact of your teaching which gets teachers into a norm of going beyond what needs to be "covered" or the other obstacles that are often faced.

A lot of good teaching happens, not because of a curriculum or a district mandate, but because skilled educators know their students and content and make a million "micro-teaching moves" to help their students access what they need to be successful. Normalizing identifying, analyzing, and discussing the efficacy of there choices is fantastic growth for teachers. However, it is also not something that a district could ever mandate because of the nature of the work. So NBC and cohorts of NBCTs normalizes some of these practices in a more grassroots way.

Anonymous
Post 06/11/2023 08:27     Subject: Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:NBCT must be raking in the cash...



I don't know - they are a non-profit. What about medical associations that certify doctors? For example, my neurologist is board certified. She is certified by the ABPN and the initial cost was $1900 for the exam. Is the APBN raking in the cash?

Or for NBCT, they outsource to Pearson to actually manage the exams and the scoring of the components. That's who is raking in the cash. But someone has to score the tests - for the medical boards too right?



I guarantee you that it's Pearson raking in the cash for medical boards testing too.

Some day in the future there will be textbooks dedicated to the stranglehold Pearson had on education in this era.
Anonymous
Post 06/10/2023 15:31     Subject: Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Any MD teachers considering doing National Boards now that the extra pay will be added to salary and pensionable?

I had it before it was cool, but I started mentoring current candidates in my building last year.

PP I don't want to derail the thread but what do you think of the program? How does it compare with graduate studies and other PD programs? Does it help teachers become better at what they do?
Anonymous
Post 06/10/2023 15:28     Subject: Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Anonymous wrote:NBCT must be raking in the cash...



I don't know - they are a non-profit. What about medical associations that certify doctors? For example, my neurologist is board certified. She is certified by the ABPN and the initial cost was $1900 for the exam. Is the APBN raking in the cash?

Or for NBCT, they outsource to Pearson to actually manage the exams and the scoring of the components. That's who is raking in the cash. But someone has to score the tests - for the medical boards too right?

Anonymous
Post 06/10/2023 15:21     Subject: Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
Anonymous wrote:It is a bunch of hooey but that is pretty much what education has become. Jump through a bunch hoops and add more titles to your name.


I don't know anymore. I was annoyed by it at the start (I'm OP); I'm certainly only doing it for the money at this point. However, I really do think I have learned a lot through this process, and have developed professionally. I do like the standards for my field. The standards were developed BY teachers who actually practice teaching what I teach, and there really wasn't a sentence in any of the standards (about 70 pages long) that I found to disagree with. They seem much more in touch with my field, much more relevant, than anything I see coming out of a school of education, or coming from our school district's central office or state's department of education. So that's something I value and approve of.

I was forced to reevaluate how I teach what I teach, how I know my students have learned what I thought they learned, and how I can prove to someone that the student learned what I thought they had learned. I had to relearn some things I had forgotten about since graduate school (and research new methods and techniques that came along since then). I realized as accomplished as I thought I was, there are still areas I could learn more about. I also got the sense that I really am among those who could be considered an expert in my certificate area: I've probably been doing this as long as most of the teachers on the committee who developed the standards.

The actual components were written in a convoluted way; that part I found annoying. And it certainly is one more hoop to jump through, but all in all I am glad I did it (but wouldn't have just done it for shits and giggles - the extra pay is definitely needed as an incentive.)
Anonymous
Post 06/09/2023 10:58     Subject: Maryland Teachers - who is doing NBPTS?
NBCT must be raking in the cash...