I think we would all do well on Teacher Appreciation Day, to listen to this amazing talk by distinguished education researcher, Vanessa Siddle-Walker on the little known role of Black teachers across the South in the civil rights movement, specifically how they provided the groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education.[Note: When you click the link, you will have to do a free registration to play the video].

Her documenting of our predecessors' heroic advocacy on behalf of their students is particularly ironic when we learn (as I wrote about in American Public School Teacher), how many of these teachers suffered professional and personal retaliation for that work in the aftermath of the Brown decision.

The lessons from that period are worthy of our attention today, as they are pertinent in the current struggles over education and social reform.

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TeachMoore is moving! Follow me at my new home--www.teachingquality.org

I’ve just returned from a meeting of the Board of Directors of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and I am thrilled about where this important organization is headed.

I also feel the need to set straight some disparaging rumors about NBPTS and encourage people to look more closely at what is an important front in the education reform battle in this country.

First, it is important to note that while the staff of NBPTS has been reduced due to reorganization, that staff now includes a significant number of NBCTs—including the Chief Operating Officer, Andy Coons. Another is the Director of Standards, Kristin Hamilton.

NBPTS has also matured to the point that the majority of the Board of Directors (15/26) are NBCTs including (besides me): Kimberly Oliver-Burnim (former National Teacher of the Year), and Glenda Ritz, newly elected state superintendent of Indiana. The majority of the NBCTs are practicing classroom teachers.

Under the direction of new president, Ron Thorpe, NBPTS has made some important changes and earned some much-deserved respect both nationally and internationally. Responding to the needs of NBCTs and candidates, the Board has recently (some would say, finally) shifted to electronic submission of the portfolios, upgraded its website, and other moves to make it more accessible and user-friendly for NBCTs and potential candidates.

Another exciting development, again thanks to the prodding of NBCTs, has been to make better use of the vast NBPTS database of accomplished teaching resources (videos and teacher reflections). Thus was born ATLAS [Accomplished Teacher Learning and Schools].

The National Board is getting its first look at the use of ATLAS in a three-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Education through its Investing in Innovation (i3) program.  Working closely with Linda Darling-Hammond and the Stanford-based Teacher Performance Assessment Consortium (edTPA), along with AACTE, the two teacher unions, Deborah Ball’s team at Michigan, and evaluator AIR, ATLAS will be introduced into teacher prep and induction programs.

While ATLAS was originally imagined as a support for teacher preparation and early career development, pilot programs in the states of Washington and Maine are now using the resource to train principals to be better observers and evaluators of teachers. National Board has received other inquiries, too, regarding professional development for teachers faced with implementing the new Common Core State Standards and other content areas. Whenever and wherever this resource is used, it extends the teacher voice into the way the profession works. (Building a True Profession, Part III)

One rumor I would like to smack-down is that the NB certification process is being run by Pearson. That is an insult to my fellow NBCTs, Board members, and staff who have fought hard and long to maintain both the independence and the quality of National Board Certification. Currently, Pearson is contracted to handle the logistics of the certification process. However, the development of the standards, as well as how they are assessed, scored, and reviewed is all under the control of NBPTS. The unfortunate glitch in release of candidate scores a couple of years ago, was a problem with Pearson’s logistics, but the scores were never lost (just regretfully delayed). National Board Certification was and remains a process created and run by teachers, for teachers.

Most important, NBPTS stands poised to help bring the teaching profession to one of its most elusive, yet essential goals: The development of a true profession. If we, educators, want to be treated like professionals, we have to be a profession. That means setting and maintaining standards for who enters, stays, and excels in this profession. It means holding ourselves and each other accountable for standards and ethics we have developed. To paraphrase Thorpe:

Governments do not create professions. Neither do businesses nor foundations. By definition, professions are created by those in the profession. If teaching is going to claim its rightful state as a true profession, then teachers and other practitioners must make sure [our]voice guides the work. That voice should exert itself through the standards of accomplished practice and the path that all teachers travel to become accomplished. Both will put teachers in a position to define the key terms of [our]work and will create the habits of mind that need to become the profession’s norm. ]We] teachers must realize, however, that no one will do this for [us]. [We] either do it for [ourselves],or through [our]silence agree to comply with the vision others have for [us].

One of the best kept secrets in education might be the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

(Open Disclosure: I am an NBCT and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Board).

Since 1987, the Board has worked “to advance student
learning and achievement by establishing the definitive standards and systems
for certifying accomplished educators….”(Mission
Statement, NBPTS).

read more

For too long, learning at school has been tied (figuratively and literally) to the old bell schedule and the Carnegie unit. 50 minutes to one hour per subject per day. Oh, then we got really creative and came up with the block schedule: 90 minutes to 2 hours per subject on alternate days. 

Slowly, we are realizing that learning and time do not have to be conjoined. It is not only possible, but possibly much better for students to learn at varying paces, based on the subject matter, availability of resources, their particular learning strengths, interests, and weaknesses--moving toward common goals, but arriving from different directions. 

read more

Not only does a true professional
certification process for teachers make sense, it is long overdue.

For too long, we have tolerated a
hodge-podge of teacher licensing and certification requirements across states
and within states. In some places, a potential teacher must have a master’s
degree in education before applying for a license. In other places, a person
needs only a bachelor’s degree (in any subject) and as little as three weeks of
summer boot camp to be placed in full charge of students.

The call by the AFT task force is
just the latest in a growing consensus among educators of the need to make
teaching a true profession. I have been fortunate to be part of many of these
studies and discussions. For example, in November 2010, the National Council
for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) issued the report
of a blue-ribbon commission representing teachers, parents, higher
education, state and local school administrators, researchers, and
policymakers. The Commission called for more rigorous teacher candidate
selection and preparation noting, “The nation needs an entire system of
excellent programs, not a cottage industry of path-breaking initiatives.”   The 2012 book,  The American Public School Teacher,
in which a broad range of education commentators reflect on 50 years of teacher
survey data, highlights the growing support among teachers for ideas such as
performance pay and peer evaluation.

It is also worth noting that the
membership and leadership of the much-maligned teacher unions have been at the
forefront of these calls. Earlier this year, NEA released the report
of a similar task force (Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching)
advocating for “collective accountability and collaborative autonomy.”  Specifically, the 21-teacher Commission
argued for the creation of national teacher standards and for “one national
umbrella group” that would “lead to preparation, licensure, and certification
processes that are consistent, efficient, and cost effective.”  At the other end of the career spectrum, we
teachers on that Commission also recognized the need for “an evidence-based,
peer review teacher evaluation system.”  Tying teacher evaluation to the Common Core
State Standards specifically, may be premature and unwise, given that the CCSS
are just the most recent in a series of standards, and these have yet to be
implemented and proven in the field.

In our 2011 book, Teaching 2030, members of the Teacher Leader Network predicted many of the conditions and changes now being discussed around the teaching profession. As co-author Cindi Rigsbee correctly noted, "“We must expect the respect for teaching afforded to all other jobs.  That is a goal that can only be reached once the world begins to look at teaching as a different profession that it was when our great-grandmothers taught school.”

The creation of a true teaching
profession will require cooperation among the many education stakeholders, but
it is clearly possible and necessary for our children’s sake.  Moreover, Americans have shown consistently
they are willing to pay for quality education for our children. Raising the
overall quality and status of the teaching profession, lays the necessary moral
and economic groundwork for more appropriate professional compensation.  

Cross-posted at National Journal.com