An existing master teacher program would receive funding under a bill heard March 9 by the Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n
LB185, introduced by Lincoln Sen. Kate Bolz, would appropriate $1 million in fiscal year 2015-16 and FY2016-17 to the state Department of Education for the Master Teacher Program Fund. <\/p>\n
Bolz said the program\u2014which helps Nebraska teachers achieve national board certification\u2014was established in 2000, but has not been funded. Providing the funding would support an initiative that improves student achievement and teacher satisfaction, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEducation is the foundation of our democracy and an educated population is the foundation of a civil society,\u201d Bolz said. \u201cI can think of few things in front of this committee that are more important than ensuring the quality of the education we\u2019re providing for our students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nila Jacobson, a Spanish instructor at Lincoln Public Schools who is nationally board certified, testified in support of the bill. Nebraska currently has 112 nationally board certified teachers, she said, compared to 20,611 in North Carolina, the national leader.<\/p>\n
The gap is a result of a lack on incentives for teachers to pursue certification, she said, which costs approximately $5,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we want to ensure that all students receive an excellent education that prepares them to succeed in today\u2019s world, we must systematically increase the quality of our teaching workforce,\u201d Jacobson said.<\/p>\n
Lincoln Board of Education member Katie McLeese Stephenson also testified in support. Only three school districts in Nebraska provide incentives for teachers to pursue certification, she said, and the state ranks 47th in the number of nationally board certified teachers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that teachers who take this step \u2026 make a huge impact on student learning and student achievement,\u201d she said. \u201cWe continue to fall further and further behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
No opposition testimony was given and the committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An existing master teacher program would receive funding under a bill heard March 9 by the Appropriations Committee. LB185, introduced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-16753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appropriations","tag-sen-kate-bolz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16754,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16753\/revisions\/16754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}