Educational Issues Series Paper on NBPTS Certification

By Laurine Karstens and Andy Kuemmel

Introduction:

Recognizing that the single most important action the nation can take to improve student performance is to strengthen teaching, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards set out in 1987 to identify the knowledge and skills that characterize accomplished teaching. The National Board created the nation’s first advanced professional standards for K-12 teachers in specific subject areas. It is now creating certificates in over 25 different areas and implementing a voluntary system of certification based on high and rigorous standards for accomplished teaching.

The National Board Certification process takes between 100 and 200 hours over the course of several months and is comprised of two parts. First, teachers create a portfolio which includes samples of their students’ work, videotapes of selected lessons, along with reflection on and analysis of those items. It also includes documentation of work as a professional, in the community, and with families. The portfolio is usually started in the late fall and is submitted in the early spring of a school year. In the early summer, at an assessment center, teachers respond to a series of written exercises that probe the depth of their subject-matter knowledge, as well as their understanding of how to teach those subjects to their students.

The portfolio and assessment center exercises are scored by trained assessors, weighted, and combined to give an overall score to the candidate. That score determines which teachers receive National Board Certification. This process is a demanding one for the educator, but it is worthwhile.

Background on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards:

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education wrote the report “A Nation at Risk.” In response, the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy’s Task Force on Teaching as a Profession wrote “A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century.” That report recommended that a National Board be formed to improve student learning by strengthening teaching. In 1987, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was established.

The mission of the National Board is:

1. To establish high and rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do,
2. To develop and operate a national voluntary system to assess and certify teachers who meet those standards, and
3. To advance related education reforms for the purpose of improving student learning in America’s schools.

The majority of the 63-member board of directors are classroom teachers. School administrators, school board members, college professors, governors, state legislators, union leaders and business & community leaders make up the rest of the board of directors. This certification process is being developed by teachers, with teachers, for teachers.

Strengthening the teaching profession, the National Board believes, is one of the best ways to improve education. The National Board Certification process is a means of professional development that is collaborative, standards-based, and ongoing. The National Board believes that excellent teachers should have incentives, rewards, and career paths that allow them to stay in the classroom. This certification process is not swayed by local politics and does not limit the number of teachers who are declared accomplished. All teachers can apply to see if they can demonstrate that they meet the objective standards set out by the board. They are assessed not by administrators, parents, or school board members, but by a well-trained, non-local group of their own peers.

Teachers with National Board Certification are finding new roles in education. They are becoming leaders from the front lines who have the experience and qualifications to influence administrators, school board members, and legislators on education policy.

National Board Certification may convince school districts, teachers, and the public to create a new kind of compensation system, one which moves towards valuing not just graduate credits and seniority, but knowledge, skills, and professional judgment.

The National Board has the support of education stake holders, and thus has broad national support from all groups involved in educational reform. Funding also takes many forms. Through the generosity of gifts, grants, and contributions from foundations, corporations, individuals, and the federal government (See Appendix 1).

The National Board wants to improve the public image of teachers. Until now, the teaching profession, unlike medicine, architecture, or accounting, has not codified the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that account for professional excellence. Many people believe any modestly educated person with some instinct for nurturing has the qualifications to teach. But teaching can no longer be defined as an essentially standard, routine activity that simple requires teachers to stand in front of students and stuff information into them.

The Five Core Propositions:

Good teaching is more than standing in front of a classroom. Teachers must have a thorough knowledge of their students and the subjects area(s) they teach. They are called on to make sound professional judgment and must be able to convey complex material in ways that students can understand.

National Board Standards are derived from five core propositions which are the cornerstones of accomplished teaching. They describe what teachers should know and be able to do:

1.Teachers are committed to students and their learning.

Accomplished teachers are dedicated to making knowledge accessible to all students. They act on the belief that all students can learn. They treat students equitably, recognizing the individual differences that distinguish one student from another and taking account of these differences in their practice. They adjust their practice based on observation and knowledge of their students’ interests, abilities, skills, knowledge, family circumstances, and peer relationships.

Accomplished teachers understand how students develop and learn. They incorporate the prevailing theories of cognition and intelligence in their practice. They are aware of the influence of context and culture on behavior. They develop students’ cognitive capacity and their respect for learning. Equally important, they foster students’ self-esteem, motivation, character, civic responsibility and their respect for individual, cultural, religious and racial differences.

2.Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students.

Accomplished teachers have a rich understanding of the subjects(s) they teach and appreciate how knowledge in their subject is created, organized, linked to other disciplines and applied to real-world settings. While faithfully representing the collective wisdom of our culture and upholding the value of disciplinary knowledge, they also develop the critical and analytical capacities of their students.

Accomplished teachers command specialized knowledge of how to convey and reveal subject matter to students. They are aware of the preconceptions and background knowledge that students typically bring to each subject and of strategies and instructional materials that can be of assistance. They understand where difficulties are likely to arise and modify their practice accordingly. Their instructional repertoire allows them to create multiple paths to the subjects they teach, and they are adept at teaching students how to pose and solve their own problems.

3.Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning.

Accomplished teachers create, enrich, maintain and alter instructional settings to capture and sustain the interest of their students and to make the most effective use of time. They also are adept at engaging students and adults to assist their teaching and at enlisting their colleagues’ knowledge and expertise to complement their own.

Accomplished teachers command a range of generic instructional techniques, know when each is appropriate and can implement them as needed. They are as aware of ineffectual or damaging practice as they are devoted to elegant practice.

They know how to engage groups of students to ensure a disciplined learning environment, and how to organize instruction to allow the schools’ goals for students to be met. They are adept at setting norms for social interaction among students and between students and teachers. They understand how to motivate students to learn and how to maintain their interest even in the face of temporary failure.

Accomplished teachers can assess the progress of individual students as well as that of the class as a whole. They employ multiple methods for measuring student growth and understanding and can clearly explain student performance to parents.

4.Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.

Accomplished teachers are models of educated persons, exemplifying the virtues they seek to inspire in students—curiosity, tolerance, honesty, fairness, respect for diversity and appreciation of cultural differences—and the capacities that are prerequisites for intellectual growth: the ability to reason and take multiple perspectives to be creative and take risks, and to adopt an experimental and problem-solving orientation.

Accomplished teachers draw on their knowledge of human development, subject matter and instruction, and their understanding of their students to make principled judgments about sound practice. Their decisions are not only grounded in the literature, but also in their experiences. They engage in lifelong learning which they seek to encourage in their students.

Striving to strengthen their teaching, accomplished teachers critically examine their practice, seek to expand their repertoire, deepen their knowledge, sharpen their judgment and adapt their teaching to new findings, ideas and theories.

5.Teachers are members of learning communities.

Accomplished teachers contribute to the effectiveness of the school by working collaboratively with other professionals on instructional policy, curriculum development and staff development. They can evaluate school progress and the allocation of school resources in light of their understanding of state and local educational objectives. They are knowledgeable about specialized school and community resources that can be engaged for their students’ benefit and are skilled at employing such resources as needed.

Accomplished teachers find ways to work collaboratively and creatively with parents, engaging them productively in the work of the school.*

* The Five Propositions of Accomplished Teaching are reprinted with permission from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards

Within each certificate area the National Board has published standards of accomplished teaching. The standards were written by a team of experienced teachers in that field using the beliefs and values of the five core propositions as a guide. These standards serve as a basis for the portfolio and assessment center exercises.

The Certificates Available:

• Projected availability date
• *ages birth through 21+

Requirements:

• Over 50% of the students you teach must fit in the range for your certificate.
• You must have taught for a minimum of 3 years prior to beginning your certification, and must have held a valid state teaching license for those years.
• You must possess a baccalaureate degree from an accredited institution.
• If you apply for a Generalist Certificate you should teach two or more subject areas.

The Portfolio:

Candidates are first asked to create a portfolio of approximately six entries, each of which asks for direct evidence of specific aspects of their work and an analytical commentary on that evidence. The portfolio is designed to take several months to complete. In this portfolio, teachers are showing a snapshot of their classrooms through videotaping of classroom lessons and samples of student work. They are also asked to show evidence of how they contribute to their professional community and how they interact with students’ families.

Selecting items to put in a portfolio takes time. Teachers have to read the standards, teach with the standards in mind, and then decide how their teaching shows evidence of the standards. For teachers, the process of deliberately comparing their teaching practices to the standards is an affirmation that what they have always been doing is exemplary.

Once candidates have selected items to include in the portfolio they must reflect and write an analytical commentary on that evidence. Part of this analytical commentary involves understanding how teaching relates to the standards. Another part involves personal reflection on the connection between the entry and the learning that took place in the classroom.

Besides four portfolio entries which show evidence from the classroom, two portfolio entries are devoted to documented accomplishments of a teacher’s interactions with students’ families, with the school and local community, and with colleagues. In these entries, candidates can submit evidence of accomplishments from the past five years. They are also asked to document specific interactions with parents of their current students.

Assessment Center Exercises:

The second part of the certification process consists of four 90-minutes exercises which focus on knowledge of the teacher’s subject and how to teach that subject to students. Candidates would, for instance, be asked to answer in detail a question that could be posed to students in that subject. Another type of question may ask the teacher to state how he/she would teach a particular concept or select materials to use for a unit of instruction. A third type of question may ask for an analysis of a sample of a student’s work. Assessment center exercises complement the portfolio exercises, so that all areas of the standards are covered in either one or the other.

Professional Development:

Going through the National Board Certification process is one of the best professional development experiences of a teaching career. A teacher can not remain in the same mind set after going through this process. The process demands that teachers look at their teaching with different eyes.

Collaboration:

Many teachers do their work in isolation. They go through their day without being able to talk to colleagues about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how it helps their teaching. By having a set of standards for accomplished teaching, candidates are able to use the same language to talk about their goals and their practice. In many states, candidates have support groups that help walk them through the process. If support groups are not present, many teachers have formed their own support groups. In these groups, teachers share what’s going on in their classrooms and how they know learning is taking place. They discuss what is sound evidence for successful lessons. Teachers who complete the certification process have enlarged their network of professional colleagues, which helps them continue to improve their teaching practice.

Video Analysis:

For most teachers, videotaping is a frightening prospect. Teachers hate to see and hear themselves on tape. They also worry that their little mistakes will be magnified on camera. However, once candidates get past that initial reaction, they come to value the videotaping process. It is important for teachers to know how they come across to students. A serious look at a videotaped lesson will help teachers answer the question: “Is learning taking place in my classroom for all my students?” No single lesson is perfect, so no videotape is going to be perfect. Teachers who look at videotapes of their teaching come to realize that every lesson has strengths and weaknesses. Even after the certification process is over, teachers who are comfortable with videotaping lessons continue to use them as a way to evaluate their teaching.

Focus on Students:

The Certification process has a focus on student learning. Teachers are asked in every portfolio entry to relate their work to students. For instance, in the entry for student work, the teacher describes not only the work but also the student involved. In the videotape entries, the focus is on what the students are saying, not just on what the teacher is doing. Teachers recognize individual differences and take into account these differences in their practice. Professional growth occurs when the focus has shifted from the teacher to the individual student.

Renewal:

Many National Board Certified Teachers talk about the feeling of renewal they have gained from completing this process. Teachers can become stale in their teaching, going through the motions year after year. This process reminds and validates for teachers what drew them to the teaching field in the first place. The opportunity to teach youngsters and the zest for knowledge.

Reflection:

It’s vital for a teacher to ask “What have I done? Where am I going? What do I believe?” The certification process makes teachers stop and reflect on what they do as teachers. In the course of a day, a teacher is very busy making all kinds of decisions and often the time needed for reflection is lost in preparing for the next day or attending after-school meetings. This process helps teachers to reflect in a meaningful and productive way on their teaching and how it relates to their students. By doing this kind of reflection, a teacher will grow as a professional.

Career Direction:

Often, accomplished teachers leave the classroom for a variety of reasons, including more money, more responsibility, broader impact on the educational process, or for personal renewal. National Board Certification helps promote a rich career for professional teachers. Over time, teachers grow in skills and experience. They should have an opportunity to demonstrate their skills and knowledge. Their role should expand while still based in the classroom. National Board Certification helps accomplished teachers stay in the classroom by giving them recognition as leaders from the front lines of education. National Board Certified teachers have been invited to join local, state, or national educational committees and panels.

Confidence:

Teachers who achieve certification find a confidence in themselves that makes them better teachers. They understand their instructional goals and can explain them to others. They are more willing to look for ways to improve their practices. They view change as necessary, and not something they should fear. They are ready to accept increased responsibility in their school communities or in their professional communities. They are more willing to open up their classrooms for others to see. In all these ways, National Board Certified teachers feel stronger and more secure in what they do.

There are many ways educators are using the Standards and the Five Core Propositions of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards to improve student learning.

• Cooperative teachers are introducing their student teachers to the Standards and Five Core Propositions. They are using them as a common ground for discussing the art of teaching.
• Graduate Schools of Education are creating masters degree programs based on National Board Certification.
• Learning Communities are being formed to discuss accomplished teaching and are using the Standards and Five Core Propositions as a model.
• Content specialists are using the Standards in their certificate area to direct their professional growth through reflective practice.
• The AFT and the NEA have endorsed National Board Certification as a way to promote professional development and improve the status of the profession.

Appendix 1

Supporters include:

• American Association of School Administrators
• American Educational Research Association
• Association of Colleges and Schools of Education in State Universities
• American Federation of Teachers
• Association of Teacher Educators
• Council for American Private Education
• Council of Chief State School Officers
• Council of Great City Schools
• International Reading Association
• Music Educators’ National Conference
• National Association of Art Educators
• National Association for the Education of Young Children
• National Association of Elementary School Principals
• National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities,
• Land Grant Colleges and Affiliated Private Universities
• National Association of Secondary School Principals
• National Association of School Boards of Education
• National Conference of State Legislatures
• National Council for the Social Studies
• National Council of Teachers of English
• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
• National Education Association
• National Governors’ Association
• National Middle School Association
• National School Boards Association*

Foundations:

• Carnegie Corporation of New York
• Charlson Research Foundation
• DeWitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund
• Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation
• Ford Foundation
• Getty Center for Education in the Arts
• John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
• Lilly Endowment, Inc.
• John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
• Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
• The Pew Charitable Trusts
• Special Projects Funding
• Spencer Foundation
• The Stuart Foundations

Corporations:

• American Express
• Anonymous Corporate Donor
• ARA Services
• AT & T
• BellSouth
• Chrysler Corporation
• Educational Testing Service
• E.I. du Pont de Nemours
• Field Test Network
• Ford Motor Company
• General Electric
• IBM
• Johnson & Johnson
• New York Times Company
• Philip Morris Company
• RJR Nabisco
• Sears Roebuck Company
• Union Carbide
• West Ed (formerly Far West Labs)
• Xerox

Educational Institutions:

• University of Pittsburgh
• University of Georgia
• University of North Carolina Greensboro

Federal Funding:

• U.S. Department of Education
• National Science Foundation*

*Reprinted with permission from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards

References:

American Federation of Teachers and National Educational Association. National Board Certification: A Guide for Candidates. 1998. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers and National Educational Association.

Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession. A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century. 1986. New York: Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy.

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. What Teachers Should Know and Be Able to Do. 1994. Detroit: National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. “About the National Board.” Online: http://www.nbpts.org/about-nbpts.html

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. A Guide to National Board Certification. 1999. Detroit: National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

Posted February 25, 2000