National Board Urged to Consider Student Test Scores

In an opening salvo to re-energize its place in national teacher-policy discussions, the body overseeing national-board certification has agreed to consider a controversial idea: weighing standardized test scores and other measures of student-learning growth as a source of evidence for awarding teachers the prestigious advanced credential.

“Given all of the different issues and debates going on about measuring teacher effectiveness and the like, we wanted to ask ourselves: Are we doing all that we can to address that issue?” said Joseph A. Aguerrebere Jr., the president of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. “When we ask teachers to provide evidence of student learning, are we looking at all the possible areas of evidence a teacher could bring forward to demonstrate they’ve met a particular set of standards?”

While there are no firm plans yet to change aspects of the certification process, the board will examine each of its 25 certification...