National Board Certification and the Teaching Profession's Commitment to Quality Assurance.

Many of the teachers who have completed the process of National Board Certification have positioned themselves as key policy makers - no longer the targets of education reform, but the leaders - and have done so while remaining in teaching, Ms. Buday and Mr. Kelly point out. For more THAN a decade - since the release of A Nation at Risk in 1983 - parents, educators, business leaders, legislators, and the general public have challenged the way our nation's schools prepare students. Growing demands for better-educated workers to bolster the nation's economic competitiveness, coupled with the continual need for a well-educated citizenry to sustain the nation's democratic values and institutions, have prompted many education reform initiatives. One reform centers on creating higher standards for student academic achievement. This focus, while important, has not always been accompanied by a parallel focus on teaching and on the daily interactions of students and teachers in the classroom. Not surprisingly, leaving teachers out of the equation for improving student learning has led to less than satisfactory outcomes for many reforms. Most notably, at the National Education Summit earlier this year, the nation's governors and business leaders worded that many students are leaving high school with diplomas they can't read. Others argued that high school graduates are ill-prepared to join the work force. Corporate leaders complained that businesses must spend millions of dollars to provide remedial basic education to employees. And all expressed concern that American students show lower achievement in math and science than students in many other countries. Governors and corporate leaders recognize that high standards for teaching are essential if we are to improve student learning. In his address at the meeting. President Clinton joined them in specifically citing the work of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) as a program for strengthening the teaching profession. The President urged governors to develop a system to support teachers seeking National Board Certification. Now a major force in the nation's education reform initiatives, the NBPTS was established in 1987 in response to a recommendation that the Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession put forth in A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century. The National Board sets high and rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do and certifies teachers who meet those standards. Teachers who earn National Board Certification have demonstrated, through performance-based assessments, that they * are committed to students and their learning, * know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students, * are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning, * think systematically about their practice and learn from experience, and * are members of learning communities.(1) Standards based on these five propositions are either completed or in progress for more than 30 different fields or teaching specialties. These fields, organized by subject and student developmental level, are the ones in which National Board Certification will be offered. Because the standards describe the skills, knowledge, and dispositions of accomplished teachers, they provide a model for how effective teaching can improve what and how students learn. Offered on a voluntary basis, National Board Certification complements, but does not replace, state licensing. While state licensing systems set entry-level standards for beginning teachers, National Board Certification establishes advanced standards for accomplished teachers. Anyone with a minimum of three years' teaching experience is invited to pursue certification. The process is open to teachers at public and private schools. Teacher educators, school administrators, and others are eligible to seek National Board Certification, so long as they meet the minimum prerequisite of three years' experience in the classroom. …