The St. Petersburg Times found national board certified teachers are much less likely to be teaching poor students, according to this Sunday story. But the Times is not alone in coming to this conclusion.

In North Carolina – the state that leads the nation in the number of board certified teachers – white students were 30 percent more likely than minority students to have such a teacher, according to this study published last year in the Economics of Education Review. The study also found while almost half of North Carolina's national board certified teachers were teaching students in the top 25 percent in math and reading, fewer than 1 in 10 were teaching students in the bottom 25 percent.

A 2005 study by researchers at SRI International (and published in the Education Policy Analysis Archives) looked at the distribution of board certified teachers in six states, including North Carolina and Florida. It found 12 percent of such teachers were teaching in schools where more than 75 percent of students were on free or reduced lunch; 16 percent were teaching in schools that were more than 75 percent minority; and 19 percent were teaching in schools classified as low-performing.

Reporters at the Columbus Dispatch found similar patterns in Ohio, looking district by district rather than school by school.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter