Task Force Recommends Student Scores Be Included in National-Board Portfolios, p. 8
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), which oversees national board teaching certification, is considering the inclusion of standardized test scores. Currently, board certification requires a teacher to pass rigorous assessments (including content and pedagogy) and to submit four classroom-based portfolios, including an analysis of their instruction. Certification can be in any of 25 areas. Portfolios include items such as lesson plans, reflective analyses, and student work samples. Current guidelines are flexible enough to allow teachers to submit many different kinds of student work in their portfolios.
The Board is re-evaluating its guidelines to make sure that its assessments are in line with its standards. Although it has up to now stayed out of the current discussion and controversy regarding standardized test scores as a measure of student growth in learning, it now wants to consider these for possible use as another component of a program for evaluating teachers. Critics point to the current patchwork of local and state assessments, concluding that standardized tests are highly in doubt as a measure of student learning and teacher effectiveness.
[Comment: My first thought was that while a review of standards for national-board certification may be in order, I’m not sure it was wise for this Board to wade into the standardized tests as a measure of teacher effectiveness controversy. It might have been better to wait until some sort of consensus emerges on this issue first. But then it occurred to me that maybe they want to weigh in on this topic and help create a consensus. They seem to think that standardized tests should be one component in evaluating teachers, and this may be the consensus position that they are promoting.]
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