National Program to Certify Teachers Proposed by Board

In a vanguard move to strengthen the teaching profession, a diverse group of educators, business and political leaders released guidelines Monday for the first nationwide teacher certification system, which will measure expertise in 29 areas ranging from childhood development to foreign languages.

The 2-year-old National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, meeting in Chicago this week, plans to begin issuing certificates to qualified teachers on a voluntary basis in 1993.

National board certification will not replace state licensing, but the board hopes that states and local districts will reward teachers with national certification through higher pay and greater responsibilities that draw on their expertise.

National certification was proposed three years ago by the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy as a way to raise teaching standards and improve the status of the teaching profession. But the concept had been resisted by teachers who questioned whether the certification process could fairly and accurately assess what teachers know and do.

“Too many Americans--school board members, administrators and many teachers included--believe that any modestly educated person with some instinct for nurturing has the requisite qualifications to teach,” the board said in a report released Monday. “The national board intends to change this view by presenting a compelling case for, and a more accurate description of, accomplished teaching.”

“The most important change is that this will give a stamp of approval to certain standards of performance and quality,” said California Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, who is a member of the board. “If we can get large numbers of teachers to be board certified, there will be a self-renewing aspect to the profession and it will help with the public (image of teaching) as well.”

Katherine P. Layton, a Beverly Hills High School mathematics teacher who also is on the board, said that teachers are excited about the concept of national certification and eager to see it become established. “Many of us are concerned about the image that teaching has--that it’s not a true profession,” she said. “This is a real effort to change that general impression people have about teaching.”

Some education leaders said rank-and-file teachers will react cautiously to the idea of national certification. “I think there will be a certain amount of cynicism,” said Wayne Johnson, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, the union that represents teachers in the Los Angeles district. “But I also think teachers are not afraid of this. If there is a board test for lawyers and a board test for doctors, it is not unreasonable to assume that teachers know certain things, especially about the subject matter they are teaching. But teachers will have to believe that the testing and certification process is fair.”

The board is chaired by former North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. and sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation. It will award certificates in broad areas, including early childhood, early and middle childhood, middle childhood and early adolescence. The certificates also will recognize expertise in specific subjects, such as English, mathematics, art, foreign language and special education.

Experts on teaching say that until recently relatively little attention has been paid to exemplary teaching and how to measure it. But the board has spent two years developing policies and conducting research on new assessment methods. By 1993, it expects to have completed the work of perfecting an evaluation system for teachers that goes beyond the traditional pencil-and-paper tests required for state licensing.

Board members say the assessment would take place over two or three days at regional testing centers. The evaluation could include multiple-choice questions, essays, oral interviews, portfolios of teaching materials and student work and classroom observations.

Candidates for national certification also would be asked to demonstrate a common practice, such as evaluating homework, conducting a parent conference or planning and teaching a lesson. Teachers must have a bachelor’s degree and three years of teaching experience before applying for national certification.

The board will assess teachers’ knowledge of their subject, their competence in teaching methods and their understanding of how children learn. Over the next four years, it will set specific standards for what teachers should know and be able to do in each of the 29 certificate fields, which “has never been done before in America,” said board President James B. Kelly.

The board has not yet determined what the optimum passing rate will be. But “that obviously is going to be a major issue,” Honig said. “If it’s set too high, that’s a problem. If it’s too low, then it doesn’t set a standard of quality for the profession.”