Credential Teachers?

By 1993, teachers in the nation’s schools may be rated on their classroom skills and knowledge in in the hope of identifying highly qualified teachers and improving the quality of teaching. This certification effort, which would be voluntary on the teacher’s part, moved a step closer to reality last week when the general guidelines by which teachers may be judged were unveiled. It is a commendable effort, but now the real work begins, and the hard questions about the idea’s merit must be answered.

Architects, electricians and others are certified to practice their trades, so why not teachers? The idea stems from a 1986 report on preparing teachers for the 21st Century, issued by the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy. The authors of the report felt certification would help enhance the status of teaching, increase salaries and attract even better-qualified people to teaching. Teachers would be rated not only on their knowledge of the subjects they teach but also on how they teach. Certification would not replace state licensing, which generally ensures only that teachers at least meet minimum qualifications.

To its credit, the Carnegie Forum did not forget its mission once its report came out. It established the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, which has been working on the policies that should guide the certification process. Earlier this month, that board issued a broad outline of “what teachers should know and be able to do.” The board said that teachers would be evaluated according to their commitment to the belief that all students can learn, their knowledge of their subjects and how to teach them, their skill at monitoring students’ progress, their ability to learn from their own experience and their collaboration with colleagues on lessons and teacher training. The board hopes that certification will just be the first in a series of reforms that will improve lagging American educational performance.

Once the board comes up with specific ways to measure performance in each of its categories, the standards will be used for ratings in 29 fields of teaching, ranging from early childhood education to business and science training for young adults. Certainly no one can quarrel with wanting teachers who do well in the categories the board has identified. But the board has a huge task ahead--translating those guidelines into fair and reliable standards for assessing teachers.

The panel also must persuade skeptics that certification isn’t simply another job-creation program. If even a fraction of the nation’s 2.5 million teachers seek certification, the process will require a staggering number of people to rate teachers and maintain the certification records. Who will pay the bill? The board is asking the federal government for $25 million to help complete research on the certification process.

The board might consider having teachers who wanted this extra credential pay to take an independently administered written test, as students pay to take college entrance examinations.

Teachers hold one of the most important jobs in this country. We favor any reasonable moves that will bring dedicated people into the profession and keep them in the classroom. We hope certification works, though much more remains to be done before it can.