Possibilities and Challenges: The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards
Published in The Journal of Education 2002
Dr. Frank Serafini
In response to
recommendations made by the Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession
(Carnegie Forum, 1986), the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
(NBPTS), was created in 1987 to serve two distinct purposes; one being the
creation of an assessment and certification system to offer teachers an
advanced certification designed to recognize “accomplished teaching”, and the
second to establish a standards setting board to develop standards in as many
as thirty-six separate teaching certification areas. The NBPTS was initiated to
“increase the professional development of teachers, the status of the teaching
profession and the quality of education in America” (NBPTS, 1987).
As stated in its original policy
statement, entitled Towards High and Rigorous Standards (NBPTS, 1989),
the board’s mission is to “establish high and rigorous standards for what
teachers should know and be able to do, to certify teachers who meet the
standards, and to advance other education reforms for the purpose of improving
student learning in America’s schools (p.1). The initial policy statement
described three distinct areas of work to be conducted by the NBPTS, namely,
the development of the board’s vision of accomplished teaching, the design of
the certification system and the development of guidelines for the creation of
the assessment system to recognize accomplished teaching (p.2).
The NBPTS was created to
respond to the claim that, “the teaching profession, unlike medicine,
architecture or accounting, has not codified the knowledge, skills and
dispositions that account for accomplished practice” and that, “certain
misconceptions about what constitutes good teaching continue to exist.”
(Baratz-Snowden, Shapiro & Streeter, 1993). The NBPTS was to address these
claims by creating a system of teacher certification, designed to go beyond the
minimum requirements of state licensure, to acknowledge and certify advanced or
accomplished practice. These certifications were to align to a specific set of
teaching standards developed by teachers, for teachers, and to develop a
unified vision of teaching across the United States.
The NBPTS is governed by a 63
member board, a majority of whom are practicing classroom teachers. The NBPTS
is described as a non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental organization whose
mission is to establish high and rigorous standards for what teachers should
know and be able to do, and to develop and operate a national, voluntary system
to assess and certify those teachers who meet these high standards (NBPTS,
1987).
The
NBPTS can be historically situated as part of the standards movement in
education during the latter part of the 20th century. As other professional
organizations have researched and developed standards in their content areas
(e.g. National Council Teachers of English, National Council Teachers of
Mathematics), the NBPTS claims to “…reflect the first thoroughly researched
standards for what excellent teaching ought to be.” (Lewis, 1994, p.4). The
purpose for the creation of these teaching standards is stated, “[a]s the
demands on students become more rigorous, guarantees that the education system
is staffed with professionals capable of teaching to achieve these standards
becomes more essential. Standards for students must be matched by standards for
teachers…” (Ambach, 1996, p.207).
The National Board
Certification System is comprised of three components; (a) the standards and
core propositions, (b) the assessment / certification process and (c) the
professional development component. The standards for each certification area
are aligned to the five core principles set forth in the board policy
statement, What Teachers Should Know and Be Able To Do (NBPTS,1987). The primary goal of developing these
standards documents is to address the unique teaching characteristics of each
certification field, while still adhering to the five core principles that
reflect the board’s vision of accomplished teaching. These five core principles
are:
1. Teachers are committed to
students and their learning.
2. Teachers know the subjects
they teach and how to teach those subjects.
3. Teachers are responsible
for managing and monitoring student learning.
4. Teachers think
systematically about their practice and learn from experience.
5. Teachers are members of
learning communities.
In the initial policy
statements regarding the assessment system, the guidelines adopted by the board
envision an assessment process that, “communicates to the teaching profession
and the public a vision of teaching as a collegial enterprise involving complex
decision making (Baratz-Snowden, 1993). From these original policy statements, the NBPTS lists four
criteria that are to be used to select assessment methodologies; validity,
fairness, efficiency and impact (NBPTS, 1989). The National Board took the
position that, “a valid assessment of accomplished practice must allow for a
variety of forms sound practice takes, must sample from the range of ways of
knowing required for teaching, and must place assessments of teaching knowledge
and skill in appropriate contexts” (NBPTS, 1989, p.4).
Issues
The
NBPTS certification process and its accompanying assessment system have been
touted as a model for professional development (French, 1997), a unique process
for certifying accomplished teachers and attracting qualified individuals into
the teaching profession (Shapiro, 1993), a set of high and rigorous standards
that teachers must demonstrate in order to achieve NBPTS certification (NBPTS,
1989), a vision of excellence in teaching that combines the wisdom of practice
of outstanding teachers with consensus among the broader education community
(Barringer, 1993) and a process that requires teachers to think and talk about
their practice in ways they have never done before, that even experienced
teachers find daunting (Mitchell, 1998).
Proponents of the NBPTS
system suggest the certification process and the development of rigorous
teaching standards will increase the professional standing of the teaching
profession, create a sense of collegiality among teachers, develop teachers
that are more reflective and cognizant of their practice, create a consistent,
unified vision of accomplished teaching and instill in the general public a
positive image of public education (Buday & Kelly, 1996; NBPTS, 1989).
These “possibilities” also include the enhanced status accorded public school
teachers, the recognition of accomplished practice as represented by the NBPTS
certification process, attracting qualified teachers to the profession,
promoting reflective practice, supporting collegial relationships among
teachers, the use of new assessment procedures to “capture” the complexities
inherent in accomplished teaching and the positive effects the development of
the “high and rigorous” NBPTS standards will have on the teaching profession.
Along with these positive
endorsements, many educators have also levied challenges to the NBPTS
standards, assessments and certification processes. Researchers and concerned
educators have challenged the NBPTS process on the grounds that it will create
a competitive atmosphere rather than the collegiality it purports to establish
(Marshall, 1996), that it will create unnecessary distinctions between
teachers, leading to an “informal” hierarchy in the teaching profession, rather
than the unifying vision the board proposes (King, 1994), that the NBPTS
standards and criteria are not consistent with what many scholars have
described as "culturally sensitive teaching pedagogies" (Irvine &
Fraser, 1998), that minority teachers, especially African - American teachers
are achieving NBPTS certification in disproportionate numbers (Bond, 1998) and
that the standards themselves are a normative force, when the teaching
profession should be celebrating its diversity and creative differences, rather
than a solitary vision of accomplished teaching (Labaree, 1992).
It is possible that the
rigorous standards outlining the NBPTS vision of accomplished practice, and the
reflective or systematic thinking that teachers engage in during the
certification process, do more to improve the quality of teaching, whereas the
assessment procedures utilized by the NBPTS are merely a traditional, numerical
scoring device, designed to certify and normalize accomplished teaching, as
well as exclude certain teaching styles based on their test results.
Delandshere and Petrosky (1998) state, “there appears to be a certain
dissonance between the constructivist views of knowledge implied by the [NBPTS]
standards and the more essentialist [positivist] notions that dominate current
educational measurement discourse” (p.19).
Is the benefit various
teachers have associated with the certification process attributable to their
alignment to the vision of accomplished practice set forth in the NBPTS
standards documents, or because of the requirements of the assessment system?
Whether the assessments are capable of distinguishing between mediocre and
accomplished teaching, or whether they are capable of capturing the complex
nature of the act of teaching, remains uncertain. However, what is certain is
that the NBPTS assessment process represents an innovative system for gathering
artifacts of teachers' practice and for analyzing the characteristics of
accomplished practice across a range of teaching areas of specialization and
student age levels.
Although there is emerging
evidence that NBPTS certified teachers are more effective classroom teachers,
based on a predetermined set of fifteen dimensions of teaching excellence
(Bond, Smith, Baker & Hattie, 2000), I remain concerned about the effects
of the NBPTS process and certification on the teaching profession. My review of
the literature reveals a sense of “skeptical optimism” about the future of the
NBPTS standards and its assessment process. Although, I would state that the
NBPTS teaching standards reflect a vision of accomplished teaching that I hope
more teachers will be able to demonstrate in the years ahead, I remain cautious
about the standards-based reform movement in general, the hierarchy of teachers
that may arise due the NBPTS certification, the assessment system's ability to
distinguish and certify accomplished teaching and the means of representing
quality teaching given the vehicles provided by the NBPTS certification system
(Serafini, 2001).
This article is intended to
address some of the “possibilities” and “challenges” that have emerged since
the inception of the NBPTS certification process and the initial design of its
assessment system. Critics are reluctant to put aside their differences
regarding the assessment procedures and the certification process itself, while
proponents are trying to build support for what they see as one of the best
chances for reforming the teaching profession and eventually public school
education. While there has been limited research available up to this point
concerning how the certification process effects the individual classroom
teacher, numerous anecdotal reports and teacher testimonials offer convincing
evidence for the positive effects of the process on reforming the instructional
practices of classroom teachers.
Possibilities
In the literature distributed
by the NBPTS, teachers are described as active participants in every phase of
the certification process, serving on committees that draft and adopt the
standards documents, scoring portfolios and assessment center exercises,
piloting test portfolio exercises, and participating in a speakers bureau
developed by the National Board in 1999. Teachers are seen as a valuable
resource, able to lead one another, learn from one another and assess one
another (Cascio, 1995). It is this sense of collegiality, and the inclusion of
teacher’s voices in the NBPTS decision making process, that the NBPTS sees as a
major benefit of the certification process for classroom teachers.
Along
with the extensive role that teachers play on the National Board, the NBPTS
certification process and the accompanying assessments, are being described as
a means to increase the professional status of the teaching profession. Words
like “recognition” and “respect” are frequently used to represent the results
of achieving certification. In one article, the author suggests that possible
benefits of National Board certification include, higher salaries, new roles
and responsibilities for teachers, a sense of pride, reasons to remain in the
teaching profession, recognition of exemplary practice and increased mobility
due to the possibility of portability of teaching credentials from state to
state (Shaprio, 1993). Other articles refer to the certification process as
having the potential for legitimating the hard work of teachers, recognizing
the “specialized” knowledge of the profession, increased levels of public
accountability, peer recognition of excellence and the opportunity to document
one’s professional activities (Smagorinsky, 1995; Bean, 1995; Areglado, 1999).
These are considered important benefits for both individual teachers and the
teaching profession as a whole.
Another important aspect of
the NBPTS system, is the actual “certification” teachers will receive after
successful completion of the certification process. This certification is
referred to as a “symbol of professional teaching excellence” and “the North
Star for teacher development” (Buday & Kelly, 1996), a “catalyst for your
own professional growth (NBPTS, 1989) and “ an opportunity to be recognized as
an outstanding veteran educator, sharpen your skills, challenge yourself, and
make your best a little bit better” (Rose, 1999). In a press release published
on the NBPTS web-site, the certification has been described as “the highest
honor the teaching profession has to bestow” (www.nbpts.org, 1999). The
statements proffered throughout these writings, suggest the certification
process, and the actual certification itself, are capable of having a
substantial and immediate impact on the status of the teaching profession and
the public recognition of teaching excellence.
The
NBPTS certification process has also been suggested as a means of attracting
and keeping highly qualified teachers. Buday & Kelly (1996), state that
National Board Certification, “encourages bright college graduates to consider
a career in teaching and motivates accomplished teachers to continue working
directly with students” (p.216). In order to do this, National Board certified
teachers are being offered financial incentives, new leadership roles and
responsibilities, positions on district committees and other advanced opportunities
in various educational institutions.
The National Board’s fourth
core proposition states, “Teachers Think Systematically about their Practice
and Learn from Experience”. In the paragraphs that accompany this proposition,
a vision of the teacher as “reflective participant”, a teacher that thinks
about the daily events in the classroom, using this information to create and
adjust upcoming learning and curricular experiences, is described. It states,
“teaching requires an open-minded capacity that is not acquired once and for
all…[therefore] teachers have a professional obligation to be lifelong students
of their craft, seeking to expand their repertoire, deepen their knowledge and
skill, and become wiser in rendering judgments” (NBPTS, 1989, p.14). The
majority of the testimonials written by teachers that have achieved
certification, have referred to this concept of “reflectivity” as one of the
most important results of going through the certification process. Teachers
have written extensively, that, “never before have I thought so deeply about
what I do with children, and why I do it” (Haynes, 1995, p.60), “it has been
the most maturing and fulfilling professional development experience I have
ever had” (Sumner, 1997, p.65) and, “you can be challenged to grow in new ways
even after 16 years of teaching” (Letofsky, 1999, p.4).
In one of the first studies
of the NBPTS process, the authors presented results of a survey of teacher’s
perspectives on the certification process (Rotberg, Futrell, & Lieberman,
1998). In this article, the authors cite numerous teacher comments about the
positive effects of the NBPTS process, stating, for example, that it was “
[o]ne of the best professional development experiences, most dramatic and
transforming experience, and the most meaningful self-evaluation” (p.463). This
change in perspective, from teacher as “program deliverer” to “reflective
participant," has been put forth as another of the major benefits of the
certification process.
Proponents
of the NBPTS process, cite the assessments and the standards developed in each
teaching and certification area, as having the most potential for impacting the
teaching profession. Proponents write that the assessments are “cutting edge”
methods, that are sensitive to the complexities of exemplary practice (Shapiro,
1995). Proponents often refer to the school site portfolio as an innovative
means for collecting evidence of a teachers capabilities that goes beyond
considerations of “technical rationality” to understand a teacher’s thinking
and reflective processes (Buday & Kelly, 1996). Along with being described
as an innovative process, the assessments are continually referred to as a
rigorous series of exercises that capture the richness and complexity of the
work of teaching (Barringer, 1993). Baratz-Snowden (1990) writes, “the most
valid assessment process is one that engages candidates in the activities of
teaching – activities that require the display and use of teaching knowledge
and skill and that allow teachers the opportunity to explain and justify their
actions (p.21).
The standards developed by
the NBPTS are described as “something to measure your practice against,"
“high and rigorous," “beyond minimum requirements," “developed by
teachers for teachers” and “compare favorably to standards developed in other
professions” (NBPTS, 1989). The extensive nature of the standards development
process is seen as an innovative model for developing the codified knowledge of
teaching excellence, designed to remove misconceptions of what constitutes
“good” teaching.
A research study recently
released (Bond, Smith, Baker & Hattie, 2000) was designed to study the
differences between teachers whose NBPTS certification score was well above the
required certification score, and those that were well below the certification
score. The choices made about subjects in the study were defined to ensure that
dependable differences between NBPTS certified and non-certified teachers could
be detected. Evidence was gathered from a variety of sources, including
interviews with candidates, classroom observations and teachers' lesson plans.
The results of this study, based on a comparison of fifteen "dimensions of
teaching excellence," suggest that, "the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards… is identifying and certifying teachers who are
producing students who differ in profound and important ways from those taught
by less proficient teachers." (Bond, Smith, Baker & Hattie, 2000,
p.5). This is one of the first studies designed to measure the differences
between NBPTS certified and non-certified teachers and their impact on student
learning and growth. Compelling evidence is offered in this study that the
NBPTS certification process is having an impact on the level of accomplished
teaching that is evidenced in NBPTS certified teachers' classrooms.
In a recent article, Johnson
(2001) states that the NBPTS certification may have the ability to create a
"staged career" in the teaching profession (p. 394). She believes
that a staged career in teaching is important, "…to attract and retain
excellent teachers, revitalize pedagogy, strengthen instructional programs, and
create more responsive schools." (Johnson, 2001, p. 394). By allowing
NBPTS certified teachers to assume new roles and responsibilities, a staged
career would offer teachers the recognition, and increased professional
standing and responsibilities, to keep them in the teaching profession.
The
possibilities inherent in the NBPTS process hinge on the impact the assessments
and certification requirements make on teachers themselves, and the recognition
given to public school teachers by
the general public. Whether the public will see this process as a
“guarantee of quality” in classroom teaching practices, whether the
certification process can change the public’s understandings and perceptions of
the teaching profession and the quality of public education in general, or
whether teachers themselves will recognize the status of Board Certified
teachers, remains to be seen.
Challenges
The various challenges to the
NBPTS assessment and certification process may be grouped into several
categories for purposes of discussion. First, there are those researchers and
educators that are concerned about the assessment process itself and whether it
can adequately measure a complex phenomenon such as accomplished teaching
practice. Challenges to the assessment procedures include the problems
associated with reducing the complex nature of accomplished teaching to a
numerical score, the qualifications and training of the assessors scoring the
teacher portfolios and nature of the feedback provided to the participants
after submitting portfolios and assessment center documents.
Second, researchers and educators are concerned with the legitimization of particular forms of teaching over other forms, for example constructivist approaches over direct instruction, and the normative effects of any process of standardizing accomplished teaching. The NBPTS standards documents and assessment procedures have created a “vision” of accomplished practice, and this vision is apt to leave out some forms of effective teaching, while promoting other forms. What voices are heard and what ones are left out is certainly a challenge to the creation of any standards documents and assessment procedures, especially to the efforts of the NBPTS.
The certification process requires teacher candidates to adopt the NBPTS vision of accomplished practice, align their practice to this vision of teaching and represent this alignment through the assessment vehicles provided by the NBPTS assessment system (Serafini, 2001). Burroughs, Roe and Hendricks-Lee (2000) suggest, "In creating standards and requiring teachers to argue in writing that they have realized the standards in their teaching, NBPTS may offer a national discourse about teaching, and as such may form a discourse community." (p. 344). Their research suggests that aligning to this national discourse causes problems for teachers that find difficulties writing in such a way that they can enter this discourse. Those candidates that were able to assume the discourse values, were those that were more likely to be certified. However, this alignment with a national discourse may be at odds with teachers' working knowledge, which is considered local, contextualized and personal (Burroughs, Roe & Hendricks-Lee, 2000).
A third category includes the
concerns over the “commodification” of the NBPTS certification itself.
Challenges have been raised about what this certification will be “worth” in
terms of prestige, opportunities for advancement and salary increases and
recognition among peers To date, there has not been a nationally recognized
“formal hierarchy” associated with the teaching profession, and this
certification may develop a sense of “haves” and “have-nots” among teachers. It
will be important to consider what the effects of being certified, and the
possession of a NBPTS certification, will have on the relationships among
teachers. Another part of this challenge is the expense of the certification itself,
which is around two thousand dollars at the time this article is being written,
and the resources and support provided for teachers to achieve certification.
If the cost of the certification is a limiting factor, concerning who can go
through the process, is it as “universally available” as the National Board
suggests?
Finally, the NBPTS process is
part of the general push towards creating standards in the various disciplines
in education. Challenges have been raised to the purposes and needs for standards
in Language Arts, Reading, Mathematics and Science instruction. The NBPTS
standards documents are being challenged on the same grounds as these other
standards. Whether creating a “one-size-fits-all” vision of accomplished
teaching will increase the quality of classroom teaching, remains uncertain.
A lion’s share of the
critiques levied against the assessment process have come from the writings of
Anthony Petrosky and his colleagues (Petrosky,1994, Delandshere & Petrosky,1994,
Delandshere & Petrosky,1998). Petrosky was director of one of the original
Assessment Development Laboratories, located at the University of Pittsburgh,
that was granted a contract to develop the first assessments for the NBPTS.
Petrosky and his colleagues envisioned the assessment system as a two part
process, one containing the school site portfolio and one that involved the
assessment center exercises, that were primarily designed to measure content
knowledge (Petrosky,1994). They believed that these assessments were unique
attempts to capture the complexities of teaching excellence and provide the
necessary feedback for teachers in the certification process. The original
proposal also included a scoring system that relied on extensive training of
scorers to support the reliability of their results, and in-depth “interpretive
summaries” to be written by the judges scoring individual candidates
(Petrosky,1994). These procedures were seen as unique efforts to improve the
assessment of the complex performances associated with accomplished teaching
(Delandshere & Petrosky,1994).
The NBPTS, after issuing a
new contract to Educational Testing Service (ETS), revised the scoring system
to include “canned feedback”, rather than the interpretive summaries originally
designed by Petrosky and his staff. A possible reason for this change was to
decrease the expense of the scoring procedures proposed by Petrosky. The ETS
also provided time for the scorers to be trained, however, the time allotted
fell far short of the extensive training that Petrosky initially proposed.
Utilizing rubrics and trained scorers, scoring small segments of individual
portfolios, the new scoring system developed by ETS was radically different
from the original system proposed by Petrosky and his colleagues. Petrosky
(1994) emphasizes his concerns about the reduction of teacher performances to
numerical ratings, the lack of preparation for scorers and the limited feedback
candidates would receive.
A review of Petrosky’s
writing shows an obvious tension between the literature of the board, its
standards, its stated purpose of creating reflective, collaborative
practitioners and the nature and content of the assessments used to support the
certification process. In recent decades, there has been less emphasis placed
on assessment frameworks that support teaching and learning, than assessment
designed for sorting and ranking of individuals (Delandshere & Petrosky,
1998). Critics of the NBPTS certification process believe that the sorting and
ranking of teachers seems to have taken precedence over the collaborative,
instructional intentions of the certification process and its standards. The
certification process itself may support teachers, but it seems that the
assessments have become “gatekeeping” mechanisms, that include (certify), as
well as exclude (deny certification).
Numerical ratings and “canned feedback” may be legally defensible and
economically justifiable, but the question remains whether they support the
improvement of teaching performance and the recognition of accomplished
practice, both important goals of the NBPTS.
The “interpretive summaries”
originally proposed by Petrosky, may provide more substantial and pertinent
information for teachers, yet these were excluded from the current assessments
because they were not legally defensible, economically affordable or publicly
acceptable (Delandshere & Petrosky,1998). This issue of assessing complex
performances has pitted the “psychometricians” against the “interpretivists”,
where the battleground encompasses not only the assessments themselves, but the
inherent purposes, audiences and consequences of the certification process.
While the psychometricians
were trying to design assessments with strong inter-rater reliability and traditionally
defined notions of validity and reliability, the interpretivists were
complaining about the reduction of complex performances to a set of scores with
accompanying canned feedback, that falls short of providing useful analysis of
teaching performance. If collegiality and systematic thinking about one’s
performance, as stated in core propositions four and five, are prioritized over
economic and “psychometric” concerns, then only by providing substantive
statements about teaching and teacher’s performance, will these propositions be
realized. Petrosky (1994) believes that not only must the numerical ratings be
made available for inspection and critique, so must the interpretive process of
the judges, the warrants for their conclusions and decisions, which tend to
“remain invisible” in this rubric driven, evaluation process (p.37). The
interpretive summaries, or narrative records of the scoring process, must
remain available to the teacher candidates so they can learn from their
performances and the evaluations of the judges.
Along with these concerns,
NBPTS teacher-assessors have stated that they were worried about the lack of
teachers' voice in the assessment process. McDonald-O'Brien (1995) was
concerned about a teacher candidate's lack of feedback during the assessment
process and states, "To have reviewed a colleague's work with no
opportunity for discussion or discourse rang hollow for me." (p. 42).
Close (1995) was "…shocked and concerned about how compartmentalized and
isolated the scoring process became." (p. 40). These views were expressed
by teachers that were part of the initial scoring groups brought together by
the NBPTS. As the number of NBPTS teacher candidates increase each year, the
various concerns raised by NBPTS scorers, and the qualifications and training
of these assessors will have to be addressed.
My own research has shown
that the NBPTS certification process focuses on a candidate's ability to align
to the vision of accomplished practice that is set forth in the NBPTS standards
documents (Serafini, 2001). Given the limitations of the assessment vehicles
provided during the certification process, one of the primary challenges for
the candidate in this study was to represent her teaching practices, classroom
context and community, and her alignment to the NBPTS vision of accomplished
practice through the written interpretive commentaries and videotape segments.
The NBPTS vision of accomplished teaching is delivered to the candidate in
written standards, and must therefore be interpreted into classroom practice.
The candidate must represent her own teaching through written interpretive
commentaries, student artifacts and videotape segments. In a sense, the
alignment that is assessed by the NBPTS scorers is between two written
representations of accomplished practice. Representing the complexities of
accomplished practice through the written commentaries and videotape segments
presented the NBPTS candidate in my study with a considerable challenge if she
was to become NBPTS certified. Whether the certification process represents a
demonstration of accomplished practice or a perceived alignment between two
written representations of accomplished practice was a concern raised during my
study and remains a challenge the NBPTS may want to address.
Along with problems
associated with the assessment procedures, various educators have challenged
the actual certification itself, insisting that the National Board
certification will create a hierarchy within the teaching profession that will
establish one legitimate style of teaching over other styles. King (1994) is
concerned that the NBPTS certification process, and its accompanying standards,
will establish itself as the (italics in original) legitimate and
official view of teaching excellence (p.104). The creation of a “universal
dogma” will exercise power over other teachers and “ultimately deny the impact
of specific local control” (p.104). While educators writing in other articles,
have referred to the “codification of knowledge” associated with the board’s
standards and the demystification of what makes a “good” teacher as a positive
consequence, King (1994) remains skeptical of these claims.
Expressing another concern
about the nature of the certification itself, King (1994) writes, “[National
Board] certificates will represent a new commodity, a symbolic good, with a
particular set of consumers” (p.102). He believes that one of the
characteristics of “cultural commodities”, like the NBPTS certificate, is that
they are markers of social distinctions, and he fears that this will create
levels and distinctions that will have a negative impact on the teaching
profession.
In conjunction with the
charges levied against the NBPTS by King and others, educators are concerned
with the lack of inclusion in the vision of accomplished teaching created by
the NBPTS of “culturally sensitive teaching pedagogies”, especially those of
African American and Hispanic heritage (Irvine & Fraser, 1998; Hamsa,
1998). The percentage of African American teachers achieving certification is
approximately 11%, compared to 45% for the total number of teacher applicants.
Irvine and Fraser (1998) see this as a serious problem, one associated with a
narrow, standardized view of teaching, rather than connected to the abilities
of minority teachers.
Irvine and Fraser (1998)
write, “…newly implemented standards aimed at increasing teacher quality and
accountability have ignored the cultural and pedagogical style and beliefs that
African American teachers bring to their classrooms.” (p.42). They state that,
"If the national board becomes the arbiter of the definition of good
teaching… and if its dismal failure to certify African-American teachers
continues, then the current crisis level shortage of African-American teachers
is sure to get worse." (p. 42). Irvine and Fraser urge more attention to
the "adverse impact" of the relatively low percentage of certified
African-American teachers, and suggest, "…good teachers should be rewarded
and acknowledged for their hard work and their success with their students, not
excluded because of a culturally insensitive assessment process which biases
the definition of good teaching in a way that privileges white, middle class,
and suburban teachers." (p.42).
Hamsa (1998) also expresses
her concerns when she writes, “the attitudes, biases and cultural identities of
prospective candidates for board certification should be examined for their
teaching behaviors towards students of various cultures” (p.454). She further
suggests, "The growing minority enrollment in the student population does
not reflect a proportionate diversity of the teaching force…" (p.454).
This problem is still apparent in the relatively low numbers of minority
teachers achieving NBPTS certification.
Finally, the National Board
Standards are part of a wider standards movement that has its own critics. Some
educators see the standardization of teaching as a movement that places
certainty and consistency at a premium over flexibility and teacher response to
individual student needs (Petrie, 1989). One of the primary tensions is the
problems associated with identifying practices that are exemplary, and then
prescribing other teachers to implement these practices. In a sense, this
prescription of accomplished teaching practices, can be viewed as a different
form of “technical rationality”, where teachers are expected to diagnose
students problems and apply the appropriate, externally devised prescriptions
to said problem. Schon (1983) believes that reflective practice entails not
only deciding on the means for attaining a goal, but also the goal itself. King
(1994) writes, “…standards deny uncertainty. The prevailing vision of teaching
as a problem of technology, efficiency, and scientifically proven methods masks
the fact that it is a highly unpredictable practice, interwoven with the
responses of students (p.106).
King (1994) is also concerned
with the “vagueness” of the standards documents and describes his belief that
they amount to no more than a “slogan system”, referring to Michael Apple’s
(Apple, 1986) writings in doing so. King (1994) describes these slogan systems
as concepts that offer little, but are hard to dispute, offering something
concrete to participants, but lacking in any assurances of this being achieved,
and that the slogans must be alluring, in order to capture public interest
(p.100). King believes the NBPTS standards are slogans that are hard to
disagree with, but offer little direction or “concreteness” for effecting
change in teaching in America. Marshall (1996), in writing about the problems
associated with the NBPTS standards, states, “ You may share my sense that
these are positive and affirming statements [NBPTS standards], but it should be
clear that they support a particular ideological position, that they speak
about what teachers are and do as predetermined, and that they imagine an ideal,
even utopian, world rather than the one in which many teachers must work”
(p.51).
Discussion
Although challenges have been
raised about the NBPTS and its certification system, especially the assessment
process, there also exists the possibility for improving the status and quality
of the teaching profession that has not existed in previous reform initiatives.
As individual teachers work through the certification process and begin to
reflect on and critique their practice from different perspectives, they become
more capable of making appropriate decisions for the students in their
classrooms. In this way, the NBPTS has the potential to impact teaching, staff
development and teacher education programs in positive areas.
The tension between the normalizing
effects of teaching standards and national certification, and individual
teacher creativity and autonomy, needs to be addressed as the work of the NBPTS
progresses. Certainly, raising the capabilities of all teachers is a
justifiable goal, whether the NBPTS process can do this without imposing
standards on classroom teaching that limit teacher control and professional
autonomy remains a primary concern. If the certification process focuses on
recognizing accomplished practice, rather than supporting teachers in improving
their classroom instruction and the quality of the experiences provided
students, the goal of professional growth may be overshadowed by the rush to
legitimize, recognize, and certify
a few “master” National Board teachers. Is the goal of the NBPTS to
recognize a few accomplished teachers or to increase the quality of the
teaching profession as a whole? The answer to this question will have an
important impact on which direction it proceeds.
The NBPTS standards represent
a vision of accomplished practice put forth by the individual committees that
have designed the teaching standards. The goal of a teacher moving through the
NBPTS certification process is to achieve certification, and in order to do
this, the candidate must align their practice with the NBPTS standards. Does
this represent a challenge to teachers' creativity and autonomy? Can creative,
“cutting edge” teachers find space within the standards to be recognized as
accomplished practitioners, or will they be forced to align with the vision set
down in the standards documents? Are there teaching practices, demonstrated as
being effective, left out of the certification process and the National Board
standards? Standards are instruments of conformity. The question is whether this
conformity will increase the quality of the teaching profession or stagnate it?
A question that I am left with is whether we are replacing one version of
“technical rationality” with another, albeit more substantial, set of standards
and vision of accomplished practice that teachers must align?
Although one could read a bit
of tension, and possibly “sour grapes” into the writings of Petrosky and his
colleagues after losing the contract for the NBPTS assessment system, one could
also make the case for their standing firm in their beliefs that the assessment
system, as currently formulated, has lost much of its original intent.
Abandoning the interpretive summaries, and replacing them with canned feedback
for candidates, shortening the length of time and intensity of the scorer
training, and removing the teacher candidate from the evaluative process, has
changed the nature and intent of the assessment process from one of
professional conversation, to the numerical scoring and eventual issuing of a
certification. What seemed like a professional growth opportunity, may have
been replaced by a standardized scoring system.
While there are certainly a
number of challenges to be addressed, there are also a number of possibilities
associated with the NBPTS certification process. How the NBPTS system will
impact the teaching profession and the general population’s perspective
concerning public schooling, remains uncertain. There are presently, very few
studies reported on the actual certification process and very few reports that
are not written by either certified teachers or NBPTS staff members. The
reports that are available, cite teacher testimonials as the primary evidence
of success. Studies need to be conducted that go beyond teacher reported
beliefs collected in national surveys, to understand the effects of this process
on classroom teachers and how this process is interpreted by candidates as they
move towards certification. However, these testimonials should not be dismissed
outright. The vast number of reports by teachers of profound changes and
improvements in their teaching practices and abilities suggest that the NBPTS
certification process and standards are forcing teachers to reflect on their
teaching and attend to aspects of their practice that they may not have
addressed previously. Teachers have attested to the changes in their teaching
and its effect on their professional lives. In and of itself, these
testimonials represent compelling evidence that the NBPTS is having a positive effect
on the quality of teaching in America's schools.