Terry is right — there is no reason to believe that teachers become any better just because they go through the NBPTS certification process, which has far more to do with the ability to spout off favored buzzwords than to successfully teach. The defenders of the program rely mainly on its supposed ability to identify the best teachers and keep them in the teaching ranks with extra pay. The trouble is that it isn’t a very reliable identifier of top quality teachers. Some excellent teachers won’t get certification because they don’t follow (or won’t say that they follow) the “progressive” education theories that the standards are built around and some weak ones who say all the approved things and take advantage of the coaching that’s readily available will.