One giant step for teaching

NEA Today, Dec 1994 by Needham, Nancy R

They said it couldn't be done, but the teaching profession now has a way of identifying accomplished teaching and recognizing those who practice it.

Early this month. the Detroit-based National Board for Professional Teaching Standards will announce the names of the first teachers to be awarded National Board certification. (The February 1995 issue of NEA Today will carry the names of those who are NEA members.)

The successful candidates are among 235 teacher volunteers who completed last year's field test in the National Board's category for middle school and junior high teachers who teach multiple subjects -- the Early Adolescence/Generalist assessment. This is the first of 30 subject/level assessments that will become available to the nation's teachers between now and the end of the decade.

"The teaching profession finally has what other professions have long had: a way to recognize accomplished practice through National Board certification," says NEA President -- and National Board member -- Keith Geiger.

And highly accomplished veteran teachers have a way to compare their skills against the National Board's benchmarks.

"I know I'm a good teacher," says certification candidate Linda Gonzalez, sixth grade teacher in the Elk Grove School District in Sacramento, California. "But national certification is a way to prove it to myself and others."

Another certificate candidate, Patsy Dean Wallin, a junior high English teacher in Laurel, Mississippi, sees national certification as a personal link to education reform.

"The whole country is moving toward national standards and authentic assessment," Wallin explains, "but the local level is often slow in embracing necessary change. For me, trying for National Board certification is a way of being engaged in the effort to set national standards."

Trying for national certification also means going far beyond the normal effort.

Between November l993 and March 1994, each candidate spent, on average, more than 100 hours putting together portfolios documenting the ways they meet the Board's standards with their own students -- "more hours than on any other one thing in my entire life," Wallin claims.

The portfolios include videos of classroom practice that took dozens of hours to prepare. "I looked at every tape three times and coded what was going on every minute -- just so I could find the examples of behaviors again," explains Lynn Countryman, a science teacher from Cedar Falls, Iowa.

After a two-month break following completion of the portfolios, the candidates went to an assessment center where, among other exercises, they defended some of the instructional decisions recorded in the video portion of their portfolio.

The products of the assessment center were later scored. Among them: videos of the candidates making their instructional defense and reams of candidate-written essays. The scorers -- other experienced teachers recruited and trained for the occasion -- examined the videos and the essays for evidence that the candidates were meeting the Board's standards in their teaching.

Among the things the teacher-judges were looking for were answers to these questions: Did the candidate display knowledge of early adolescent development and subject matter? Did the candidate maintain a stimulating learning environment and provide challenging material? Does the candidate collaborate willingly and well with colleagues? And so on.

Months later, the National Board set the standard for passing.

Assuming there will soon be a group of teachers who are Board-certified, what impact will that have?

Here are some likely changes:

* States and school districts will provide teachers with material and professional benefits as incentives to obtain National Board certification. (See box above for incentives already in the works.) Nothing says they have to do this, but many state governors and legislators are major supporters of National Board certification as a way to raise education standards.

* Through its Board-certified teachers, the teaching profession will take further control of national certification. Board-certified teachers will eventually elect the members of the National Board. They'll also begin performing right away many of the roles in the assessment process, such as proctor, interviewer, scorer.

* Board-certified teachers will have clout -- maybe even an attitude. After what they've been through, they're not likely to feel obliged to subscribe to the "I'm only a teacher" line.

"If going through the Board-certification process gets teachers to challenge school boards and principals," says Valarie French, NBPTS vice-president for assessment, "that will be an enduring result."

* Pass rates on National Board assessments will rise. "As candidates know more what to expect, they'll know when they're ready -- even which assessment, generalist or math, say, best matches their preparation -- and pass rates will climb." says NBPTS senior vice-president Jim Smith. Smith observes that, for these same reasons, pass rates on medical boards are high.