Keywords

National Board Certification, hegemony, school resources, social reproduction, critical social theory

Abstract

In 1986, the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy published A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century in which it recommended that a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) be established to ascertain and institute criteria for teacher excellence (Steiner, 1995). No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) mandated that every classroom employ a "highly qualified teacher" (No Child Left Behind, 2001a); moreover, NCLB articulated the relationship between improving student achievement and higher standards for qualifying classroom teachers (Rotberg, Futrell & Lieberman, 1998). Research conducted in Miami-Dade County supports Florida's use of National Board Certification (NBC) as an "effective signal of teacher quality"(CNA Corporation, 2004, p.1). Critical theorist, Michael Apple, emphasized the role of education as an agent for the maintenance of hegemony (Apple, 2004). However, Apple further posited that the actual bureaucracy of school - the institution of education itself - is reflective of the same consumerist ideology of society, thus making the hegemony even more complete. Using the aforementioned theoretical construct, the researcher examined the development of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), the distribution of Nationally Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in a central Florida school district, and their professional responsibilities as a means of examining whether this mechanism for identifying "highly qualified teachers" achieves its stated aim of providing every student with access to a "highly qualified" teacher, as is legislated and funded per NCLB.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2008

Advisor

Holt, Larry

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

College

College of Education

Department

Educational Studies

Degree Program

Curriculum and Instruction

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0002366

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0002366

Language

English

Release Date

December 2008

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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