Florida has dropped from No. 1 in the annual count of new National Board certified teachers to No. 5, with only about one-third the number of educators completing the program as a year ago.

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards reports today that just 651 Florida teachers successfully completed its certification system this year, compared to 1,826 in 2008.

This should come as no surprise, given the Florida Legislature's 2008 decision to stop funding the $2,500 application fee and the $4,800 mentoring bonus for National Board certified teachers. (Gov. Crist preserved the base bonus for these teachers in the spring, rejecting a proposal by lawmakers to scale those back to only those educators who work in low-performing schools.)

Florida remains No. 2 for total National Board certified teachers nationally, with nine districts in the top 20 across the United States, including Hillsborough (7th) and Pinellas (16th). Whether that matters to students remains a point of debate among researchers.

See the list of newly certified local teachers, as provided by NBPTS. (Some names may be missing, because some teachers started the process in one district and completed it in another.)