The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has divided itself into three “working groups’’ to address some of the central policy issues involved in creating a national system for certifying teachers.
The three groups--on certification and standards, assessment methods and processes, and education policy and reform--will meet throughout the year, with the goal of developing recommendations that the full board could vote on as early as next January.
The first task of the working group on certification and standards--chaired by Katherine P. Layton, a mathematics teacher from Beverly Hills, Calif.--is to help define the subject-matter knowledge, general-education background, knowledge of pedagogy, and demonstration of effective teaching that will be required for board certification.
The group on assessment methods and processes, chaired by Shirley A. Hill, a professsor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, will examine the variety of evaluation techniques the board might want to develop for its own use.
“The work of these two groups will be used later this year to develop the first design for the board’s research-and-development program,’' said James Kelly, president of the board.
The third group, on education policy and reform, is chaired by Barbara R. Hatton of the Ford Foundation. It will address a variety of school-reform issues that might affect the board’s work, with an emphasis on the panel’s role in recruiting and certifying minority teachers.
During 1989, the board plans to organize a series of national, regional, and state meetings, during which its proposed system could be discussed with members of the education community and the public.
Over the next several years, Mr. Kelly predicted, board members “will have extensive conversations with literally thousands of people’’ about the group’s plans.
A Congressional subcommittee is currently drafting legislation that would provide $25 million in one-time federal support for the board’s research-and-development activities.
This month, the board also plans to submit funding proposals to a variety of foundations. It has requested a second, one-year grant of $1 million from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.--LO
