Teachers to Test Certification Plan Designed to Improve U.S. Schools

Up to 200 San Diego schoolteachers will take part in two years of testing a new national voluntary certification system designed to improve the quality of the nation’s school instruction.

San Diego will be the only urban California school system participating in the field-testing of new standards that would serve as a benchmark for what teachers should know and be able to do in the classroom.

The testing, which will involve about 100 urban, suburban and rural districts across the nation, was announced Monday by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The board was established in 1987 by the Carnegie Corp. of New York to set up a nationwide system for certifying teachers.

While voluntary, the Board Certified teacher credential that the group plans to begin issuing in the mid-1990s is meant to reward those teachers willing to undergo classroom assessment as well as testing of their professional knowledge.

The certification will not replace those systems now in place in various states and cities but will be modeled after professional boards in fields such as medicine that offer additional certificates for demonstrated excellence beyond that assumed with a basic license or credential.

In setting up the board, the Carnegie Corp., a longtime advocate of changes in American educational practices, hopes that teachers who command the special certification will become more coveted by school districts, thereby pushing up salaries and attracting brighter young people into the teaching field.

For its part, San Diego will host eight trials of 20 to 25 teachers each over a period of about nine months, recruiting them from a pool of 5,300 within the San Diego Unified School District. The teachers will review draft standards by the board, suggest programs for teachers who wish to seek the special certification, and carry out actual assessment.

The national project will cost about $2.6 million, of which $300,000 will be spent in San Diego. The school district will contribute $78,000 in non-monetary contributions, such as employee time.