development of a national standards framework for the teaching profession. acer policy briefs. issue...

Australian Council for Educational ResearchACEReSearch

Teaching Standards and Teacher Evaluation Teaching and Learning and Leadership

5-1-2002

Development of a national standards frameworkfor the teaching professionLawrence IngvarsonACER, [email protected]

This Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Teaching and Learning and Leadership at ACEReSearch. It has been accepted forinclusion in Teaching Standards and Teacher Evaluation by an authorized administrator of ACEReSearch. For more information, please [email protected].

Recommended CitationIngvarson, Lawrence, "Development of a national standards framework for the teaching profession"(2002). Teaching Standards and Teacher Evaluation.http://research.acer.edu.au/teaching_standards/7

http://research.acer.edu.au

http://research.acer.edu.au/teaching_standards

http://research.acer.edu.au/teaching_learning_leadership

mailto:[email protected]

Explanatory noteThis paper was prepared for the MinisterialCouncil on Education, Employment andTraining Taskforce on Teacher Quality &Educational Leadership.

The brief for the paper was to ‘Develop anissues paper to provide a basis for discussionand, where possible, propose options. Thepaper needs to cover the following broad areas:

Definition

How do we develop a national definition of‘Good Teaching’ and what should it include?

Structure

What should a ‘National Standards Framework’look like and what structure is desirable?

Purposes

This needs to cover how could/should a‘National Standards Framework’ be usedincluding aspects such as:

✦ What are the benefits andramifications?

✦ How can it cater for differencesbetween sector/system needs?

✦ Could it be used to inform theselection criteria?

✦ How could/should it influencepre-service teacher educationcourses?

✦ How could/should it influencein-service teacher educationcourses?

Other implications

This needs to examine methods for assessingperformance against standards, includinghow teacher performance can be assessedusing standards in ways that are reliable,valid and productive in terms of recognitionand professional development.’

Australian Council for Educational Research19 Prospect Hill Road Camberwell VIC 3124 AUSTRALIA1/140 Bourke Road Alexandria NSW 2015 AUSTRALIA

Policy Briefs

An Issues paperprepared for theMCEETYA Taskforce on

Teacher Quality andEducational LeadershipThe views expressed in this publicationare those of its author and are notnecessarily those of the MCEETYATaskforce on Teacher Quality andEducational Leadership.

Dr Lawrence Ingvarson

Head of Teaching andLearning DivisionThis paper can be downloaded at theACER website www.acer.edu.au

Development of aNational StandardsFramework for theTeaching Profession

ISSN 1447-1957

ISSUE 1 May 2002

Development of a National Standards Framework for the Teaching Profession

2

Section 1

Definitions and purposes for standards 3

The meaning of standards 3

Rationale for teaching standards 4

Purposes for teaching standards: mappingthe territory 4

Section 2

Defining performance-basedteaching standards 8

Professional principles 9

Content standards 9

Evidential standards 13

Performance standards 13

How are standards structured? 15

Section 3

Teaching standards: Whoseresponsibility? 18

Section 4

A National Standards Framework: Issuesand areas for action 21

Accreditation of teacher education 22

Content and qualification standards 23

Performance-based assessmentsfor registration 24

Performance-based professionalcertification 26

Stance 29

References 30

Contents

Definitions andpurposes for standards

The meaning of teachingstandards

Dictionaries give two inter-related uses of theterm ‘standard’: to rally, as around the banner,or flag (standard); and to measure.

As rallying points, standards aim to articulatecore educational values that teachers seek tomake manifest in their practice. Developers ofprofessional standards will be guided byconceptions of learning and development;what they believe it means, for example, toeducate a mind, to learn with understanding,and to think independently of the teacher.Standards, by definition, are statements aboutwhat is valued.

As measures, standards will not only describewhat teachers need to know and be able to doto put these values into practice; they willdescribe how attainment of that knowledgewill be assessed, and what counts as meetingthe standard. A standard, in the latter sense, isthe level of performance on the criterionbeing assessed that is considered satisfactoryin terms of the purpose of the evaluation.

Teaching standards must identify the centraltasks of teaching, and adapt to changingpublic expectations of schools. Some wouldargue that subject matter is at the core ofteachers’ work and that the central task ofteaching is helping diverse students learnimportant subject matter. Other roles such asnurturer, classroom manager, role model aremeans to that end.

Standards also need to identify the uniquefeatures of what teachers know and do. Onetradition of research on teaching has soughtprinciples of good practice that apply nomatter what the subject matter being taught.On the other hand, research on teaching and

learning over recent years has emphasised thehighly context-specific nature of teachingexpertise. The content of what is being taughtis a central part of the context.

Standards do not just describe currentpractice; they clarify what teachers shouldknow and be able to do in the light of researchand best practice. A standard points to anddescribes a desirable level of performance.Standards are a means of translating researchinto expectations for teachers’ practice.Standards are not immutable; they needregular revision in the light of research andprofessional knowledge.

Standards clarify what teachers should getbetter at over the long term. Standards describetrajectories for professional development. Theymake manifest the idea that good teaching issomething a person learns how to do over time;that good teaching is not just a bundle ofpersonality traits. Standards confront themindset that teaching is just a matter ofpersonal style and doing your own thing.

Standards give warrant to the claim thatteaching is a profession with the capacity toevaluate its own practice and implementprofessional models of accountability.Standards provide a foundation for teachersand their associations to provide leadership intheir own profession.

Trends in the development of teachingstandards

1. They are developed by teachers themselvesthrough their professional associations

2. They aim to capture substantiveknowledge about teaching and learning –what teachers really need to know and beable to do to promote learning ofimportant subject matter.

3. They are performance-based. Theydescribe what teachers should know andbe able to do rather than listing coursesthat teachers should take in order to beawarded registration or certification.

3

Section 1

4. They conceive of teachers’ work as theapplication of expertise and values tonon-routine tasks. Assessment strategiesneed to be capable of capturing teachers’reasoned judgements and what theyactually do in authentic teachingsituations.

5. Assessment of performance in the light ofteaching standards is becoming one of theprimary tools for ongoing professionallearning and development.

Rationale for teaching standards

The rationale for teaching standardsunderpinning this issues paper isstraightforward. What teachers know and dois the most important factor affecting studentlearning outcomes. Nothing matters more tothe quality of education in our schools thanthe knowledge, skill and commitment ofteachers. Achieving Australia’s National Goalsfor Schooling in the Twenty-first Century(MCEETYA, 1998) will depend above all on thequality of our teachers.

Recognition that teachers matter most callsfor greater emphasis on policies that directlyaffect the quality of teaching and teachers.These will include strategies to attract ablegraduates, prepare them well, retain them inteaching and promote their continuingprofessional development toward highprofessional standards. Central to the successof such strategies are improved workingconditions and career paths that place greatervalue on teachers’ work and provide greaterincentives for all teachers to develop towardhigh levels of effectiveness.

While the primary role of a NationalStandards Framework will be to facilitateefforts by states, territories and theCommonwealth to meet ‘intergovernmentalresponsibilities’ and to play theircomplementary roles in driving, assuring andsustaining the quality of teaching in schools,research tells us over and over again thatgovernments can not mandate what mattersin educational reform.

Policy efforts focused on teacher quality mustencourage the profession to develop its owncapacity to define rigorous standards andassess its members’ performance. RecentCommonwealth, state and territory reportsand policy initiatives clearly recognise thatstrengthening the teaching profession in thissense is fundamental to improved studentlearning outcomes. A National StandardsFramework calls for the creation of newstructures and professional bodies throughwhich policy makers and the profession canmeet on equal terms and exercise their jointresponsibility for standards in teaching.

Elmore (1996) points to the central rationalefor standards in ‘getting to scale’ witheducational reform:

The existence of external norms is importantbecause it institutionalises the idea thatprofessionals are responsible for lookingoutward at challenging conceptions of practicein addition to looking inward at their valuesand competencies. (…) Without some kind ofexternal normative structure, teachers have noincentive to think of their practice as anythingother than a bunch of traits. The existence ofstrong external norms also has the effect oflegitimating the proportion of teachers in anysystem who draw their ideas about teachingfrom a professional community and whocompare themselves against a standardexternal to their school or community.External norms give visibility and status to

those who exemplify them. (p. 319)

Purposes for teaching standards

The nature and content of teaching standardsvary according to their purpose. Standardsused to select entrants into teacher educationprograms will be different from standardsused to assess the performance of teachersapplying for registration. Standards used by aprofessional body to certify that a teacher canperform at a very high level in their specialistfield will differ in important respects fromstandards used by an employer in makingdecisions about promotion or unsatisfactoryperformance. These in turn may not be thesame as standards used by a state registrationbody in making decisions about whether ateacher should be deregistered. One standardsframework will not fit all the purposes forwhich standards may be developed.


4

Table 1 sets out a number of differentstandards along a continuum that runs fromentry and pre-service education to inductionand later ongoing professional development.It indicates the extensive range of purposes forstandards, as in any profession. Table 1 shouldbe seen as illustrative only, rather than anaccurate description of what currentlyhappens in teaching. Not all states andterritories, for example, have statutory teacherregistration boards.

Explication of standards in Table 1

Selection standards for entry into teachereducation programs

These may include cut-off TER scores, aptitudetests, as well as standards for pre-requisitesubject matter knowledge, degrees, courses, andqualifications. Little is documented aboutcurrent practice nationally or acrossuniversities. There is relatively little externalmonitoring of the entry standards in Australia.The Teacher Training Agency in the UK judgesteacher education institutions partly in termsof the academic quality of the students theycan attract. Most US states have legislation onacademic entry standards. In Victoria, TERscores for teacher education entrants have beenincreasing steadily over recent years. It is to behoped this trend can be sustained over thenext period when larger numbers of newteachers will be needed.

Standards for tertiary qualifications inteaching

These may include standards for what graduatesfrom teacher education courses should knowand be able to do, such as depth of knowledgerequired of subject matter to be taught. It is noteasy to pin down the levels of academic/subjectmatter/content knowledge standards requiredin Australia for graduation from teachereducation programs across the states or fromuniversity to university.

Research on effective professional developmentpoints regularly to the beneficial effects ofhelping teachers to understand better thecontent of what they are expected to teach.This is an area that would warrant closeattention in the development of a NationalStandards Framework.

The Teacher Training Authority (TTA) in theUK lays down specific guidelines for the subjectmatter to be covered in teacher educationprograms. In the US, the trend over the pastfifteen years (eg The Holmes Group) has been togive much stronger emphasis to subject matterknowledge over general pedagogy courses. Moststates now require graduates to pass their owntests of knowledge related to the subject matterthey will teach, additional to, or separate fromuniversity qualifications. Many researchstudies indicate that the nature and depth of ateacher’s understanding of what they areteaching is related to the teaching methods theycan use and student learning outcomes(Darling-Hammond, 2000; Brophy, 1990).

Accreditation standards

These usually include standards for theevaluation of courses and institutions,conditions of training, staffing, schoolexperience, teaching practice, etc. One trend isto use exit student performance as a criterionfor assessing and accrediting pre-service courses.The Australian Council of Deans has developedNational Standards and Guidelines for initialTeacher Education (Preparing a Profession, 1998)but, so far, these have not been implemented.There is no national level body for assessmentand accreditation of teacher educationprograms equivalent to the Australian MedicalCouncil. A recent NBEET study ofaccreditation across professions showed thatteaching had one of the lowest levels of externalprofessional involvement in accreditation.

Registration standards

These are standards of performance that needto be met before full entry to the profession(not just employment with one employer). Inmost professions registration depends onsuccessful completion of some kind ofinduction or intern program. In other words,registration standards are distinct fromqualification standards. With some exceptions,this has not been the usual practice in teaching.Registration has been automatic followinggraduation, but most states and territories arenow moving away from this model, and arelooking at standards and assessments tosupport more effective induction andmentoring programs.

5


6

Accreditation (of pre-service education institutions)

State legislation/registration requirements

Relevant quality assurance mechanisms:

Registration of new teachers Advanced certification

Registration renewal

Phase 1

Pre-service preparation

Phase 2

Induction

Phase 3

Continuing professional development

✦ Selection standards

Focus: Standards for entry to teacher education programs.

✦ Qualification standards

Focus: Standards for graduation from teacher education programs. eg required level of knowledge of subject matter to be taught.

✦ Accreditation standards

Focus: Standards for assessing teacher preparation courses and institutions.

Standards relevant to each phase:

✦ Registration (licensing) standards

Focus: Standards for performance for full entry to the profession after probationary year, or more.

✦ Permanency (or tenure) standards

Focus: Employer-specific standards, where permanency still applies.

✦ Accountability standards

Focus: Standards for periodic review of performance of contractual duties for retention or dismissal decisions.

✦ Reregistration standards

Focus: Standards required for periodic renewal of registration.

✦ Appraisal standards for professional development

Focus: Standards for self-analysis and reflection on practice.

✦ Advanced certification standards

Focus: Profession-wide standards for highly accomplished practice set by a professional body. Assessment by expert peers.

✦ Promotion standards

Focus: Standards for career advancement specific to an employing authority. Certification may be a prerequisite for promotion.

Table 1A map of professional standards and quality assurance functions

While there are many sets of contentstandards for beginning teachers, all of whichare similar to each other, there has beenvirtually no research on development of validmethods for assessing teacher performanceagainst those standards.

Permanency standards

Where permanency still applies, the standardsin this case are employer-specific standards.Usually applied during the first year or so ofteaching with that employer.

7

Performance management or accountabilitystandards

These refer to managerial requirements forperiodic appraisal for satisfactory performanceof teaching duties for retention or dismissaldecisions. The foundation for these standardsrests in the concept of the contract as a legaldocument – setting out what a teacher is hiredto do. (The emphasis here is on studentwelfare/public safeguard – usually minimumcompetency type standards.)

Appraisal standards for professionaldevelopment

This requires standards based on research andprofessional knowledge, visions of highlyaccomplished practice, clear dimensions ofwhat teachers should get better at. (Althoughappraisal is usually to promote professionaldevelopment, it has an accountability aspect interms of expectations for keeping up withresearch and best practice.)

Certification standards

Certification is an endorsement by professionalbody that a practitioner has high standards ofpractice. As used in this paper, certification refersto the process by which a non-governmentalagency or association recognises an individualwho has met professional standards, beyondinitial registration standards, set by that agencyor association. Professional certification is basedon assessment of performance againststandards, not course completion.

By definition, certification is not a qualityassurance function that government agenciesor employing authorities can ‘own’, though itcan be in their interest to encourageprofessional bodies to undertake responsibilityfor providing it.

No body currently carries out this function inAustralia, although several national teacherassociations are conducting research anddevelopment on standards and assessments inpreparation for playing a role in this area andseveral others have expressed their intention togo down the same path. One of the best knownexample of a certification body is the NationalBoard for Professional Teaching Standards inthe US. Most state governments in the USAgive recognition to NBPTS certification.

Like registration, certification is portable; it issomething an individual carries with themfrom employer to employer, or position toposition, or across school systems.

Promotion standards

Standards for career progression or promotionare specific to the employer. These are usuallyspecified in industrial or enterpriseagreements. Career progression in teachinghas usually been based on selection for aposition or job, rather than evidence ofdevelopment toward higher standards ofpractice. Selection procedures aim to predictability to carry out new duties orresponsibilities – rather than assess attainmentof performance standards.

Increasingly, career structures are beingreformed in Australia, as in many countries, togive greater recognition to the centralimportance of teacher quality. This calls forstandards and methods for assessing teacherperformance that must meet high standardsof rigour and fairness. Some school systems,such as EDWA, have contracted this task(selecting Level 3 Classroom Teachers) toprivate consultancy firms. Others place theresponsibility with school principals, whichcan lead to variation from school to school inthe way the standards are applied and teacherdissatisfaction, as with the recent ‘threshold’reforms in England.

Each of the above purposes not only requiresa different type of standard, but differentmethods for assessing whether the standardhas been met. Virtually no research has beenconducted in Australia on the reliability,validity or fairness of methods currently usedto apply the standards set out in Table 1.

Table 1 is useful in raising questions about thepurposes to which a National StandardsFramework should be put. It is certainlyunlikely that one set of standards will meetall these purposes. And, a national standardsframework divorced from clarity aboutpurpose or conceptions of use will not beworth developing.


8

Defining performance-based teachingstandardsMany sets of generic teaching standards havebeen developed. The challenge now isproduce standards that will be used. Two ofthe most important uses for teachingstandards are to build more effective methodsfor professional learning linked to more validsystems for assessing teacher performance.

Tools are needed that will build strong linksbetween standards and action; otherwisestandards will remain on the shelf. Assessment isan essential tool in building these links.Considerable advances have been made in recentyears in standards-based performanceassessment. These hold considerable promisefor teacher education and professionaldevelopment. These advances have come fromadvances in performance-based testing generally.

The point of the following discussion is toshow how to build stronger links betweenteaching standards, performance assessmentand teacher learning by moving toward astandards-guided professional development systemfor teaching (Ingvarson, 1998).

Three different kinds of standards inperformance-based assessment

Three types of standards are essential indeveloping high quality assessments forteaching, as set out in Diagram 1.

✦ Content standards (defining teaching)

✦ Evidential standards (capturing teaching)

✦ Performance standards (evaluating teaching)

As Diagram 1 indicates, these standards needto be embedded in a set of core values and aguiding educational vision.

Diagram 1 aims to convey the message thatteaching standards need to be seen as a set ofstandards, in which answers to the followingquestions should be provided:

✦ What is important about what we teach,and what is quality learning of what istaught?

✦ What should teachers know and be ableto do to promote that kind of learning?

✦ What tasks should teachers perform toprovide evidence of what they know andcan do?

✦ How will that evidence be judged fairlyand reliably?

Section 2

Core professional principles/values guiding educational vision

Content standards

What is good teaching?

✦ What should teachers know and be able to do?

✦ Defining the domain of good teaching.

✦ What is the scope of teachers’ work?

✦ What are we going to measure?

Evidential standards

What evidence will we gather?

✦ What rules will we use to gather evidence of practice?

✦ Capturing good teaching.

✦ What tasks should teachers be expected to perform?

✦ How are we going to measure it?

Performance standards

How will we judge performance?

✦ What level of performance meets the purpose?

✦ How good is good enough? Where do we get the standard?

✦ How will we discriminate between good and poor?

✦ How are we going to score it?

Diagram 1Performance-based teaching standards: main components

9

Professional principles

These are foundational values that underpinmore detailed descriptions of teachers’ workset out in the standards. They are corepropositions setting out in general termswhat all teachers should know and be able todo, regardless of the level or specialist field inwhich they teach. It is more common now tofind core principles and values included withrecent sets of standards in Australia, such asthose produced by Queensland and WA.

[The National Board for Professional TeachingStandards (NBPTS) for example, began byspelling out, after long debate, a set of corepropositions for teaching:

1. Teachers are committed to students andtheir learning.

2. Teachers know the subjects they teach andhow to teach those subjects to students.

3. Teachers are responsible for managing andmonitoring student learning.

4 Teachers think systematically about theirpractice and learn from experience.

5. Teachers are members of learningcommunities.

(Each of these generic core propositions iselaborated on in considerable detail.)

When the NBPTS appoints standardscommittees for particular fields of teaching,such as early childhood or high school maths,it asks them to develop subject and levelspecific standards that:

✦ reflect these five core propositions;

✦ identify the specific knowledge, skills, anddispositions that support accomplishedpractice in their field, while emphasisingthe holistic nature of teaching; and

✦ show how a teacher's professionaljudgment is reflected in observable actions;and describe how the standards come tolife in different settings.]

Content standards(Defining good teaching)Content standards refer to what teachersshould know and be able to do in particularfields of teaching. ‘Content’ as used here doesnot just mean knowledge of subject matter.Developing content standards is best thoughtof as trying to define good teaching. Contentstandards describe the scope and content ofteachers’ work. They set out the main areas of

a teacher’s responsibilities and provideelaborations what each standard means interms of teacher knowledge and practice.

Content standards contain statements atvarying levels of specificity, as set out in Table 2.At Level 1, statements are common to allteachers, as are most categories at Level 2 (eg‘Assessment of student progress’, or ‘Reflectivepractice’). However, standards also need toindicate what is unique about what teachersshould know and be able to do, in the contextof particular areas of the curriculum and levelsof schooling, if they are to be useful for PD orassessment. Table 2 indicates that the debateabout whether standards should be generic orspecific is, in reality, a non-debate. (Examplesare drawn from the ASTA ProfessionalStandards) It’s a matter of the level at whichstatements are being made about teaching.

Validity of Content standards

Content validity refers to whether teacherswho implement a particular set of standardsactually do provide higher qualityopportunities for students to learn than thosewho do not. Validity refers to whether thestandards identify correctly the knowledge,skills and attitudes that lead to highlyaccomplished teaching.

For example, it is clear from several researchstudies on professional development thatwhen primary teachers gain a deeperunderstanding of how students learn thecontent they are teaching they become moreeffective, and it shows up in improved studentlearning outcomes. A well-known example is aseries of studies by a University of Wisconsinteam in which teachers are provided withresearch-based knowledge about thedevelopment of children’s mathematicalconcept and thinking in number (Carpenter,et al. 1996; Kennedy, 1998).

In other words, the Wisconsin study indicatesthat there can be links between certain kindsof teacher learning, classroom practice andquality student learning outcomes. Teacherswho deepen their understanding of howconceptual development takes place innumber, and who gain skills in how to tracethat growth in their students, become moreeffective mathematics teachers.


10

Statements of vision, core principles, propositions.

Statements at this level are highly generalised, abstract. They aim to capture the deeper, long term educational values and purposes that teachers pursue, but are not intended to be used to assess performance.

Level 1

Core educational values

Definitions

‘Our Australian society is shaped by the natural environment in which we live; the natural environment in which we live is shaped by our society. The nature of our future society is therefore dependent on the extent to which our citizens understand and appreciate these interactions. At the heart of this is students becoming engaged with science, both attitudinally and intellectually.’

(ASTA Standards: Vision statement)

These statements define the main categories of accomplished teachers’ work and of the knowledge base of teaching.

Most of these categories are ‘generic’, but some core categories need to spell out what is unique about what teachers do in respective fields of teaching. (eg. an early childhood teacher should show how they help students learn to read)

Level 2

Organising categories

Highly accomplished teachers of science (Standards 6-8)

6. engage students in generating, constructing and testing scientific knowledge by collecting and analysing evidence.

7. continually look for and implement ways to extend students’ understanding of the major ideas of science.

8. develop in students the confidence and ability to use scientific knowledge to make decisions about their personal lives and about wider issues that involve science.

(Extract from summary of ASTA Standards)

Statements at this level are elaborations of the Level 2 categories. They describe what teachers need to show they can do in particular fields of teaching, without specifying how they must do it.

Level 3 statements should be useful in making judgments about a teacher’s performance. They point to elements of observable, appropriate behaviour, but transcend reference to specific practices.

Level 3

Subject and level-specific statements

✦ Highly accomplished teachers of science guide their students in active inquiry that leads students to observe and measure phenomena, record data and reach tentative conclusions consistent with data collected.

✦ Accomplished teachers are aware of common conceptual difficulties or misconceptions on certain science topics, which they readily recognise in their students, and deal with.

(Extracts from elaborations of ASTA Standards)

These are statements that describe specific teacher actions or teaching styles. Not useful as a basis for writing standards as they lead to an overload of detail. Also invalid, as there is no one best way to teach.

Level 4

Statements about specific strategies or styles

✦ Accomplished teachers use concept maps to elicit students’ conceptions of heat and temperature.

✦ Accomplished teachers use advance organisers to start lessons.

Examples

Table 2Developing standards: levels of statements about teaching

What role should this kind of knowledgehave in the development of teachingstandards? Is it the kind of knowledge thatthe teaching profession should come toexpect its members to keep up with? Is it thekind of knowledge that should find its wayinto teaching standards?

It is not likely to be the kind of knowledge thatwould readily find its way into generic standardsabout teaching. Nor can its possession be assessedby methods other than those that can probe ateacher’s reasoning about their practice and beused by carefully trained assessors who areexperts in the same field of teaching.

11

The challenge for developers of standards is towrite statements that can capture this kind ofprofessional knowledge about effectiveteaching practices in specific fields ofteaching. A standard that simply says‘teachers should use a range of teachingstrategies’ does not take us very far. Standardsneed to accurately represent what teachersneed to know and be able to do provideeffective, appropriate, timely learningopportunities for students – in the specificareas of the curriculum they are teaching.Otherwise standards will devalue,oversimplify and underspecify theprofessional knowledge of good teachersknow and what it takes to teach well.

Standards high on content validity exciteteachers, as they can see the value that isplaced on what they know and do. Earlychildhood teachers, for example, gainconsiderable satisfaction on reading theNBPTS Early Childhood Standards, as they seeat last something that portrays their work ineducational terms and legitimates theirexpertise.

Box 1 shows a small extract from one of theNBPTS Social Studies-History standards.Social studies teachers can find somethingchallenging here that goes to the heart ofwhat they are trying to do. The extract alsoshows how a standard can describe what ateacher should be able to show they can do,without prescribing how they should do it.These standards do not standardise practice.

Standards that describe what an earlychildhood teacher should be able to do will bedifferent from those for an accomplished highschool social studies teacher. Reverse thesettings for these teachers and they willreadily feel de-skilled. The extent to whichtheir professional capabilities differ quicklybecomes apparent. Generic standards havedifficulty picking up these differences.

To be valid, standards must be sensitive tothese differences in what teachers are expectedto know and be able to do in different subjectsand at different levels. The same applies toassessors. They need to be teachers who areknowledgeable and experienced in the samefield as the teachers they are assessing.

Deep subject matter knowledge is a necessary,though not sufficient, condition for teachersto be effective. Expert teachers not onlyknow their subject matter; they understandthe education potential in their subjectmatter. They also know many ways to helpsomeone learn that subject matter. Contentstandards also need to capture what is uniqueabout teachers in different fields need toknow and be able to do.

[It is increasingly common to findprofessional teaching standards bodies in theUS adopting the stance taken by theConnecticut State Board of Education.Connecticut’s quality assurance framework,its Common Core of Teaching (CCT), sets outa comprehensive set of performancestandards for use during teacher education,induction and ongoing professional growthphases. The CCT is made up of two parts:

Box 1

Extract from NBPTSSocial Studies-History standards

Standard VI Civic Competence

…Accomplished SS/History teachers also recognise the critical importance of civil public discourse in thecivic life of the nation and work with students to practice and model the skills necessary to be effectiveparticipants in such public conversations

…They encourage students to consult a variety of sources for information about the topic in hand. Theyteach students to construct informed positions on public issues, to express their positions orally and inwriting…They help students understand the role of dissent and civil disobedience in the life ofthe community.


12

‘(1) foundational skills and competencies thatare common to all teachers from kindergartento year 12; and (2) discipline-based professionalstandards that represent the knowledge skillsand competencies that are unique for teachersof elementary education, English Languagearts, history/social studies, mathematics,music, physical education, science, specialeducation, visual arts, and world languages.’]

Another example of this trend is the USInterstate New Teacher Assessment andSupport Consortium (INTASC) (www.ccsso.org).Box 2 gives a brief profile of INTASC.

Procedural validity: Procedural validity refers tothe process by which a set of professionalstandards is developed. Criteria for proceduralvalidity include:

✦ the integrity and independence of thebody responsible for developing thestandards;

✦ that the standards developing body iscomposed primarily of those who arealready highly accomplished practitioners;

✦ that the diversity of perspectives in theprofession is represented;

✦ that the process of defining the standardsis developed on a sound scientific basisand that the process of developing thestandards be formally documented; and

✦ that a wide sampling of agreement issought for the standards from the majorprofessional groups regarding theappropriateness and level of standards.

The process by which a set of standards isdeveloped will be a critical issue, not only forthe validity of the assessment procedures, butalso for their legal defensibility. Proceduralvalidity calls for professional standardsbodies that are genuinely independent andcan act without fear or favour. Standardsdeveloped recently in the UK for assessingover 200 000 teachers at the ‘threshold’ (top ofthe salary scale) lacked procedural validity(Ingvarson, 2001).

Box 2

INTASC is a major national program for the development of a national standards framework for initialteacher registration. It was set up and funded in 1987 by the Council of Chief State School Officers(a body vaguely equivalent to AESOC in Australia) to facilitate collaboration among states in thedevelopment of standards for licensing new teachers.

INTASC began its work by articulating ten ‘common core’ principles that delineate the common core ofknowledge, dispositions and performances necessary for a learner-centred approach to teaching. Eachprinciple was then described further in terms of underlying knowledge, dispositions, and performanceskills expected of all new teachers, regardless of the subjects, grade levels, or students taught.

Principles 1 and 2, for example, state:

1. The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he orshe teaches and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningfulfor students.

2. The teacher understands how children learn and develop, and can provide learning opportunities thatsupport their intellectual, social and personal development.

INTASC establishes subcommittees to translate these core principles into standards and performance-based assessments across the curriculum. The Mathematics Subcommittee, consisting of highly regardedteachers of mathematics, teacher educators and researchers from across the country, translated the tenCore Principles into ‘Standards for Beginning Teachers of Mathematics’.

INTASC takes great pains to emphasise that the ‘common core’ principles are not analogous to genericor context-free teaching behaviours. Applications of these common understandings and commitmentsare manifested in specific contexts – defined by students, subjects, and school levels, among others. Andassessments of specific teaching decisions and actions must occur in varied contexts that will requirevaried responses. Subject-specific pedagogical decisions, for example, need to be evaluated in the contextof subject-specific standards.

13

Evidential standards(capturing good teaching) As for content standards, the method wechoose for assessment will also be anexpression of our values and conception ofteachers’ work. Evidential standards arestandards for ensuring that the evidencegathered about a teacher’s performancereflects the intention and scope of what is inthe content standards. Evidential standardsseek to ensure another kind of validity; thatthe methods of assessment are relevant to, andrepresentative of, what is in the standards.‘Task standards’, or ‘work standards’ are termsthat mean the same thing in the field ofstandards-based performance assessment.

A good way to understand the idea ofevidential standards is to use the example ofthe decathlon, as in the Olympics. People usedto argue, apparently, about who was thegreatest all-round athlete. So, the concept ofthe all-round athlete needed definition. Whatshould all-round athletes be able to do? After alot of debate, one presumes, the concept wasmade concrete. They can run fast, jump fast,swim fast, etc, etc. In other words, the contentstandards were defined – the domain of whatshould be measured, if you were judgingwhether someone was a good all round athlete.

The problem of evidential or task standards isnot deciding what to measure, but how tomeasure it. What should an athlete be asked todo to provide evidence that they are good all-round athletes? Ten events were decided uponsomehow and the concept was therebyoperationalised. This was seen as an appropriatesample of tasks to gauge all-round athleticability.

Similarly, evidential standards in theassessment of teacher performance call forteachers to undertake a range of authenticteaching tasks, each providing evidencerelevant to several standards.

Performance standards(evaluating good teaching)A performance standard is the level ofperformance on the criterion being assessedthat is considered satisfactory in terms of the

purpose of the evaluation. To continue thedecathlon analogy, performance standards notonly specify how well an athlete must do ineach event to qualify; they need to specify howwell they must do across all events on theaverage to be rated a good all round athlete. (I don’t know how they do it, but I presumethey have a system for allocating points andweighting each event in reaching a final score.)

Setting performance standards, in otherwords, can be just as complex as developingthe content standards. How good is goodenough to make the cut score? This takes usinto the business of having to develop scales,scoring rubrics, weight the different tasks,set the standards, identify benchmarkperformances and train the assessors (whichwon’t be gone into here).

The cardinal rules for reliable and validevaluations of teaching are: multiple,independent sources of evidence (assessmenttasks); and, multiple, independent, trainedassessors. The message is, don’t move intoteacher assessment unless you can first proveyou can do it fairly and rigorously, and on alarge scale. The consequences of poorlyresearched teacher evaluation schemes can beserious in terms of cynicism and morale.

Summary

Sykes and Plastrik (1993) provide a definitionof a standard that usefully summarises theforegoing discussion.

A standard is a tool for rendering appropriatelyprecise the making of judgments and decisions ina context of shared meanings and values. (p. 4)

An example: Evidential validity in NBPTSassessments

How are these ideas translated into standards-based performance assessments for teachers?The most rigorous work, in terms of highstakes assessments for certification isundoubtedly that of the NBPTS. (TheINTASC and ETS/PRAXIS standards andassessments are close behind.) It makes goodsense to study this work closely and learnfrom it, as the NBPTS has drawn heavily onthe best brains in the educationalmeasurement world and conducted moreresearch than any other body in developing

its certification system. And it is a system thatcontinues to grow and gain credibility andrecognition across the US from all sectors,from teacher unions, state governments tobusiness and parent organisations.

Teachers applying for National Boardcertification are asked to complete ten separateassessment tasks (six portfolio entries and fourassessment centre tasks. As in the decathlonexample, these tasks aim to represent the rangeof abilities in the content standards. Each taskprovides independent evidence of performanceon several standards. Every standard is assessedin several different ways.

As with the all-round athlete, we can ask, forexample, ‘what tasks would one expect aaccomplished primary generalist teacher toperform to provide evidence that they havemet the standards?’ Teachers on the NationalBoard decided that candidates should showevidence of their teaching across the curriculum,because that is what they are expected to teach.

Here are summaries of four of the ten tasksthat teachers are asked to complete forcertification as a highly accomplished primaryteacher (Middle Childhood Generalist). Twoare based on evidence from student worksamples and two are based on video evidence.

1. Provide evidence of a unit of work, withstudent writing samples, in which youhave developed student’s writing abilityover time.

2. Develop an inter-disciplinary theme andprovide work samples that show how youengage students in work over time thatdeepens their understanding of animportant idea in science.

3. Provide a videotape and commentaryillustrating how you create a climate thatsupports students’ abilities to understandperspectives other than their own.

4. Provide evidence, through a videotape,written commentary, and student worksamples, of how you have helped buildstudents’ mathematical understanding.

Note how these tasks, together, sample acrossfour main types of tasks that all teachersnormally do: planning and teaching a unit of

work; assessing student work; buildingunderstanding through whole classdiscussion; and engaging students inproductive small group work. Similarexamples apply across the NBPTS’s 30-oddcertification fields.

Each piece of evidence (‘portfolio entries’)must come from a different unit of work orarea of the curriculum. Each task is a centralpart of what teachers do, or should do in theordinary course of their work. That is, each isan authentic component of any classroomteachers’ work, not an artificial add ons like somuch material that finds its way into CVs.

The focus of the tasks differ from onecertification field to another, say from aprimary generalist teacher to a high school artteacher, but the type and underlyingstructure of the tasks stay much the same.There is a high level of comparability acrossthe certification fields in the amount of workand the type of evidence teachers provide inapplying for Board certification.

Most important, the tasks provide evidence aboutwhat the students are doing as a result of theopportunities for learning the teacher has set up,not only what the teacher says or does.

The National Board assessments stipulate whatteachers are to show they can do, but, like thecontent standards, they are open, or non-prescriptive, about how they show they can doit. To illustrate, science teachers are asked toshow in one of their portfolio entries thatthey can engage their students in analysis andinterpretation of data the students havecollected in a scientific investigation. That ascience teacher should be able to do this inorder to gain certification as accomplished is anon-negotiable, as far as the National Board isconcerned. But how they choose to do this intheir school context is completely up to theteacher.

Developing assessment tasks calls forconsiderable creativity and research. Manyideas seem promising, but do not produceevidence that can be scored reliably. Taskshave to be tailored to what is being taught,though the National Board uses a similar setof ‘shells’, or structure, across the certificationfields, for its six portfolio entries (soon to bereduced to four). Within the common


14

structure, however, teachers are asked to dothings that are unique to their field. Scienceteachers are asked to provide evidence thatthey can promote scientific understanding,engage students in inquiry, relate science tosocial issues and so on. They are not asked todo the same as an Early Childhood Generalistor high school Art teacher. The nature of theevidence asked for is different because theseteachers do things that are, in significantrespects, different from each other.

As a side comment, it will be seen here againhow much the debate about generic vssubject-specific standards is a non-issue.When it comes down to the methods ofassessing performance, teachers in differentfields will be asked to provide evidence aboutthe things they do that are unique to theirfield of teaching. Assessment for registrationor advanced certification would be quiteinvalid if it did not ask teachers to showevidence, across a number of independenttasks, of how they had attained the standardsin a representative sample of the curriculumareas they are supposed to be teaching.

[An ACER research team has been reviewingmethods currently used in Australia for theevaluation of teaching. With few exceptions,procedures do not meet standards for reliableand valid measurement of educationalpersonnel (eg Joint Council on Standards forPersonnel Evaluation in Education, (1988).There appears to be little awareness that suchstandards exist. Procedures currently used inthe UK for ‘threshold’ assessments are almostcertainly legally indefensible.]

Governments do not venture intoadministering state or national tests ofstudent achievement without ensuring thatthe necessary research and development hadbeen conducted on the tests to ensure theabove assessment standards were met, yet thishappens regularly with teacher evaluationschemes, often with damaging results onmorale or levels of cynicism, as happened withthe Advanced Skills Teacher concept.

How are standards structured?

When standards are to be used as a basis forassessing performance, there are severalfurther requirements that must be met.These will only be touched on here.

Coherence

Coherence refers to the overall structure of thestandards and the extent to which thestandards as a whole ‘hang together’. Do thestandards as a whole provide a coherentframework that describes the essential elementsof accomplished teaching; or do they seem like arandom list of disconnected criteria orcompetencies? Standards used to assess teacherperformance need to be high on coherence. TheNational Board standards are underpinned by aclear framework of elements essential toaccomplished performance, as are the ETScriteria for PRAXIS III (see Attachment 1).

Stages of teacher development

What are the bases for distinguishing betweenbeginning and experienced teacherperformance, between novices and experts, orbetween accomplished and highlyaccomplished? What assumptions are madeabout what teachers should get better at? Inother words, what theory of developmentunderpins the standards?

Performance standards need to be structuredaround a clear theory of development andindicators of increasing expertise. Few do thiswell. Many sets of standards describing stagesor levels in teacher career paths simply expandthe work of teachers, adding bits like‘leadership’ or ‘management’ on to lists ofcompetencies, rather than describing thenature and ways in which performanceimproves.

Attachment 2 gives an interesting glimpseinto the ways in which some stategovernments and professional standardsbodies in the US are moving towardstandards-based career structures, making useof a variety of standards and performanceassessment systems developed by nationalbodies such as the Council of Chief StateSchool Officers (INTASC), Educational TestingService (ETS) and the National Board forProfessional Teaching Standards. RecentEBAs in states like Victoria are also moving, inprinciple, in this direction, basing salary moreon external assessment of performanceagainst statewide standards.

15


16

Architecture

This refers to the way that the various fields ofteachers’ work are designated and structured forpurposes such as registration or certification.This will be an issue in the development of aNational Standards Framework for Teaching,just as it was in the development of theNational Curriculum Statements.

A standards framework for teachers willinevitably need to mirror the curriculumframework, and the different levels for whichteachers are trained. In defining whatstudents should know and be able to do,curriculum standards define, in part, whatteachers need to know and be able to do.

Table 3 indicates the national standardsframework developed by the National Boardfor Professional Teaching Standards. Itreflects, of course, the way the Americanteachers on the Board wanted the fields inwhich they work to be mapped out. The‘Levels’ reflect the way schools are organised inthe US, with elementary, junior and seniorhigh schools. And the certification fieldsreflect the way they organise the curriculum.A standards architecture that suits Australianeducation would be different. In the interestsof promoting discussion, Table 4 shows apossible framework for Australia.

Level

Certification field

EarlychildhoodAges 3–8

MiddlechildhoodAges 7–12

EarlyadolescenceAges 11–15

Adolescenceand youngadulthood

Ages 14–18+

Art

Career and Technical Education

English as a New Language

English Language Arts

Exceptional Needs

Generalist

Guidance and Counseling

Health

Library Media

Mathematics

Music

Physical Education

Science

Social Studies – History

World Languages otherthan English

Table 3NBPTS standards architecture

17

Registration/Certification Field

Level

Pre schoolAges 3–5

Earlyand middlechildhoodAges 8–12

Earlyadolescence andyoung adulthood

Ages 13–18+

English includingEnglish as a Second Language

Generalist

Health and Physical Education

Languages other than English(LOTE)

Library Resources

Mathematics

Science

Special Needs

Mathematics

Student Welfare

Studies of Society andthe Environment includingHistoryGeography andEconomics

Technology

The Arts includingMusicManual ArtsPerforming ArtsVisual Arts

Table 4Fields in which teachers might gain registration and certification in Australia

Teaching standards:Whose responsibility?Table 1 (in Section 1) not only draws attentionto the wide range of purposes for teachingstandards. It leads to questions about theappropriate locus of authority for theirdevelopment. Where does legitimateauthority rest for development of standardsfor professional teacher evaluation andteacher accountability? On what conceptualfoundation should teaching standards bebased? Who has the authority, or theexpertise, to develop standards for whatteachers should know and be able to do? Howshould procedures for assessing teacherperformance be developed and validated?Who should apply those procedures and howshould they be trained?

Two main purposes for teacher evaluation canbe distinguished in the set outlined in Table 1above. The first is to safeguard theeducational interests and welfare of studentsand ensure that their teachers are able to fulfiltheir contractual duties. This purpose is basedon the undeniable requirement that teachersbe well prepared and publicly accountable.Standards for this purpose are mainly genericand common to all teachers. Responsibilityhere rests with government and is delegatedto its managers and managers of schoolsystems. Performance managementregistration would seem to fall into thiscategory.

The second purpose emphasises thecomplementary need to ensure that teacherscontinually review and improve theirpractices in the light of contemporaryresearch and profession-defined standards. Inmost professions, responsibility for definingstandards for high quality practice andpromoting development toward themusually rests with professional bodies.Professional certification and registrationrenewal systems aim to serve this purpose.

There are no examples of certification orrenewal systems operating currently inAustralia (although such systems arerecommended, for example, in the RamseyReport and by the MACVIT Committee).

Both purposes are unlikely to be achievedeffectively without engaging the professiondeeply in all phases of development andapplication of the standards and building astrong sense of ownership and accountabilityfor them among teachers.

A framework of responsibilities forstandards

At this point in the paper there is a need toconceptualise a framework of responsibilitiesfor standards. Table 5 is designed to assist inthis process. It is adapted from Roth (1996)and is meant to indicate the complementaryresponsibilities of public and professionalagencies in quality assurance. Table 5 shouldbe seen as an idealised model of the situationin the USA; it distinguishes quality controlfunctions that would be the responsibility ofpublic or state government bodies, such asstate institutes of teaching, from those thatwould be undertaken by independentprofessional bodies. Because the US has afederal system of government, the model ismore relevant to thinking about possibilitiesfor Australia than the UK.

In Table 5, over page:

Licensing (registration) is a function of the stateacting on its authority to protect and promotethe general public welfare. Registration is alegal process by which the state evaluates thecredentials and performance of prospectiveteachers to ensure they meet the standards setby the state registration agency.

Program (Course) approval is a legal process inwhich a state body (eg a State Board ofEducation) recognises the programs of aninstitution so that a person who successfullycompletes the program is eligible forprovisional registration. The same body thatlicenses teachers usually conducts programapproval. (State governments in the US arenot employers of teachers.)


18

Section 3

19

Qualifications are a function of agencies such asuniversities and other recognised institutionsand providers, which attest that an individualhas successfully completed a course of study.

Certification is the process by which a non-governmental agency or professionalassociation recognises an individual who hasmet professional standards set by that agency orassociation. The National Board for ProfessionalTeaching Standards performs the certificationfunction to acknowledge members whodemonstrate advanced capabilities.

Accreditation of teacher education institutionsis conducted at the national level by anindependent professional body, the NationalCouncil for the Accreditation of TeacherEducation (NCATE). NCATE is a coalition ofeducational organisations and is recognised bythe US Department of Education to provide

the profession’s stamp of approval to teachereducation institutions.

Table 6 shows what we get when thisframework is applied to the current situationin the medical profession in Australia (and NZ).

State and Territory Ministers of Health andtheir State Medical (Registration) Boardsestablished the Australian Medical Council asan incorporated body in 1985. Since then ithas played an increasingly important role inquality not only in accreditation, but in thedevelopment of uniform registrationstandards and latterly in decisions aboutrecognition of new specialist colleges.

As defined here, the term ‘accreditation’necessarily involves independent assessment.(The expression ‘self-accrediting’, as has beenused with reference to universities, seems tobe a contradiction in terms.)

Table 5Standards: State and professional functions (US)

Recognition ofteacher educationprograms

Credentialling ofindividuals

Level of expertise Participation

Professionalaccreditation(eg. National Councilfor Accreditation ofTeacher Education)

Professionalcertification(eg. National Boardfor ProfessionalTeaching Standards)

Higher or specialisedlevels of professionalpractice

Voluntary(but may bedesignated asprerequisite byemployer)

Approval ofprograms

Licensing(registration)

Basic Compulsory

Agency

Professional(or National)

Public/State

Table 6Standards: State and professional (National) functions

The case of the medical profession in Australia

Recognition ofmedical educationprograms

Credentialling ofindividuals

Level of expertise Participation

Australian MedicalCouncil (Est. by StateMinisters of Health,1985)

Specialist Colleges(Professionalcertification)

Higher or specialisedlevels of professionalpractice

Voluntary(but may bedesignated asprerequisite byemployer)

(Approval of internprograms only)

State MedicalPractitioner Boards

Minimum Compulsory

Agency

National

State


20

A graduate of a medical course accredited bythe AMC is eligible for registration as amedical practitioner in any state or territoryof Australia. By assessing the medical schools,the AMC is able to assure the medicalregistration boards that a medical school'seducational program satisfies agreed nationalguidelines for basic medical education.

Responsibility for developing standardsin Australia?

Table 7 was developed to facilitate furtherMCEETYA discussion about futureresponsibilities for developing and applyingteaching standards. The positioning of the Xsis purely conjectural, though most seem to fallinto boxes fairly readily. State bodies like theQueensland and SA Boards clearly havestatutory responsibility for many of the listedpurposes (and others). No body hasresponsibility for certification. The functiondoes not exist as yet in teaching. It is hopedthe table may assist MCEETYA discussion.

The Australian Medical Council(Incorporated)

Extracts from the AMC constitution (Nov. 1992)

The Australian Medical Council (AMC) wasestablished in 1985 as a result of a decision ofthe Australian Health Ministers and given thefollowing functions:

1. To advise and make recommendations tothe State and Territory Medical(Registration) Boards in relation to:

(a) the accreditation of medical schoolsand of courses leading to basicmedical qualifications;

(b) assessment of the suitability forpractice in Australia of overseastrained medical practitioners; and

(c) uniform approaches to registration.

2. To maintain a national compendium ofthe medical registers of all Australianstates and territories.

3. To provide advice to the Australian HealthMinisters Advisory Committee on mattersconcerning the occupational regulation ofmedical practitioners, including generaland specialist registration.

Purpose

State governmentstatutory bodies:

eg. SA/QBTRVic/NSW Institute

of Teaching

Employingauthorities/

EBAs

Professional(national)

bodies

Universities

Promotion

Advanced Certification

Registration Renewal

Performance Management

Full Registration

Provisional Registration

Graduation/Qualifications

Accreditation of teachereducation programs

Subject matter backgroundstandards for graduation

Entry standards toteacher education

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Table 7Who should be responsible for setting standards in teaching?

21

A National StandardsFramework: Issues andareas for actionThe brief for this paper was to explore issuesinvolved in developing a National StandardsFramework for teaching and to suggest areasfor action. The final section of this paper isorganised around three key issues that willneed to be addressed in developing a nationalframework.

Four areas for MCEETYA action are suggested,each of which has the potential to enhancepolicy efforts by State, Territory andCommonwealth Ministers to assure andsustain the quality of teaching in schools.

Key issues

1. Purposes

What purposes should a standardsframework serve? What kinds ofstandards development efforts at thenational level could serve the interests ofgovernment?

2. Structure

How should standards frameworksbe structured to reflect adequately thecommonalities and diversity in whateffective teachers need to know and beable to do? How can a frameworkincorporate the different fields and levelswithin which teachers need preparationand professional development?

3. Implementation

How should a standards framework bedeveloped? What structures are needed?Who should be involved in developingand applying performance standards?

Purposes

In developing national standards frameworks,it is recommended that the taskforce givepriority to the following purposes:

1. Accreditation of initial teacher educationprograms

2. Assuring beginning teachers have relevantcontent and academic qualifications

3. Registration, for decisions about full entryto the profession

3. Certification, to promote and recogniseevidence of professional development.

A number of purposes for a NationalStandards Framework were mapped outearlier in this paper. The most centralpurposes for standards in any profession areregistration, accreditation and certification.These basic quality assurance mechanisms arerecommended for attention because theycross sectors and employing authorities. Theyare not specific to schools or school systems.Responsibilities and methods for carrying outthese functions lie outside the local enterprisebargaining. Professional standards, bydefinition, are profession wide, andregistration and certification, as endorsementsthat practitioners have attained thosecapacities, are portable qualifications.

Individual employing authorities will havetheir own school or system-specific purposesfor teacher evaluation, such as makingdecisions about permanency, annualperformance review, promotion andunsatisfactory performance. And they maydecide to draw on and adapt a nationalframework in carrying out these purposes.But the primary locus of authority overregistration and accreditation restsconstitutionally with state governments andMinisters, across all regulated professions.Ministers establish state professionalstandards bodies, not professions, notemployers, and they do that when publicwelfare and safety need to be guaranteed.

Section 4


22

Whereas registration and accreditation gohand in hand, certification is a different kindof animal. As a voluntary process ofperformance assessment against professionwide standards, it is not a function thatgovernments or their agencies can claim to‘own’, only something they can decidewhether to sponsor and recognise, or not.Certification is common to many professions,but not teaching. It would be unrealistic toexpect all employing authorities to giverecognition from the start to certification by anational professional body. It may meet theneeds of some states and employers and notothers. Recognition would only grow as itscredibility and utility grew.

Structure

Throughout the following discussion it isrecommended that the structure for anational standards framework should bemade up of a common core set of professionalvalues and standards, with elaborations ofwhat those standards mean across specificlevels and fields of teaching, as outlinedearlier in Section 2 (also see Tables 3 & 4). Thisshould be a guiding principle.

Implementation

There would be many ways to implementthese proposals. It would be inappropriate togo into precise details here. This would be thebusiness of professional standards committeesto decide.

AREAS FOR ACTION

1. Accreditation of teachereducation

Explore the feasibility of establishingan Australian Education Councilwhose main function will be to operatea national system for the assessmentand accreditation of initial teachereducation programs

While assessment and approval of teachereducation programs is a state responsibility, itis believed this is an area where there would bemany advantages to inter-governmentalefforts by Ministers to establish a national

agency to carry out, on their behalf, a rigorousindependent accreditation function. Currentaccreditation systems for professionaleducation generally in Australia are weak intheir capacity to shape university programs(Cameron, 2001).

The importance of independence, expertiseand distance in accreditation procedures cannot be over-estimated. There can be nodenying that those responsible forprofessional education programs should beaccountable for ensuring that graduates meetthe performance standards required by stategovernments and their registration boards.

The Australian Medical Council represents arelatively effective working model for theMCEETYA Taskforce – and a usefulprecedent. The AMC derives its authorityfrom legislation in each state and territory.Health Ministers have established uniformminimum requirements for initialregistration as a medical practitioner and thepurpose of accreditation is to ensure thatprograms are producing graduates who meetthose standards of performance. The primaryfunction of the AMC is ‘to advise and makerecommendations to the State and TerritoryMedical Boards in relation to theaccreditation of Australian (and NewZealand) medical schools and of coursesconducted by those schools leading to basicmedical qualifications.’

There is no equivalent quality assurancemechanism in teacher education. In theoptimal situation, registration andaccreditation can be powerful, interlockingfunctions, especially with a move to outcomesor performance based accreditation.Standards for registration, in the full sensedefined above, can help to reshapepreparation programs regularly in the light ofresearch and the demands of practice. Withfew exceptions, current course approvalarrangements for teacher education at stateand territory level lack the capacity andresources to do this.

A national agency for accreditation wouldbring highly regarded teachers and teachereducators together from across the countrywith representatives of Ministers and

employing authorities. Panels of assessors usedby the AMC must include experts in medicaleducation and come from other states, thusincreasing the independence and reliability ofthe assessment. A national accreditation agencywould lead to greater cross-fertilisation of ideasfrom research and best practice in teachereducation. National teacher associations couldalso play a more significant role in developingguidelines and on assessment panels as well, asthey do in NCATE accreditation in the US.

The total number of universities preparingteachers across Australia would not be toolarge for a body equivalent to the AMC to copewith. And no state has enough universities towarrant a separate accreditation body for thatstate alone. Some states and territories haveonly one university and questions aboutcapacity for penetrating and independentevaluations must arise.

There would be considerable economies ofscale with a national body. Arguments for anational accreditation agency are reinforcedby the fact that graduates are also more likelyto move interstate than in the past.

The ACDE report Preparing a Profession (1998)provides useful guidelines for accreditationthat an Australian Educational Councilcould draw upon. More emphasis should begiven, however, to evidence of performanceoutcomes in the guidelines, consistent withtrends in professional education generally.

A National Standards Framework setting outexpectations for teacher education programswould have a very valuable role to play inpromoting teacher quality. The idea of anAustralian Educational Council along the linesof the AMC deserves consideration. It wouldseem to have the capacity to enhance the rolethat Ministers can play in assuring the qualityof preparation for entrants to the profession.

Rigorous accreditation procedures will costmore, but some researchers argue that the costsof not doing it well are even greater in the longterm (Darling-Hammond and Sclan, 1996).Costs would be shared between state andCommonwealth governments and universities.(Universities wanting NCATE accreditation inthe US have to cover the costs.)

2. Content and QualificationStandards

(a) Explore the potential for a nationalframework of standards explicatingthe levels of content knowledge thatgraduates need to teach in the fieldsfor which they are being prepared.

(b) Look at the feasibility of developingmethods for assessing that knowledgethat will be useful for universities andstate registration bodies

Variation in student learning outcomes isattributable, more that anything else in theschool system, to variations in what theirteachers know and can do. And this variationin the quality of learning opportunities thatteachers can provide is attributable in largepart to variations in the beliefs andunderstanding they have about the contentof what they are teaching and how studentslearn that content, what ever that content is.This is a necessary condition for effectivepedagogy.

Some relevant findings from recent researchon teacher education:

✦ Teacher education is more effective whenit is embedded in the specific content ofthe curriculum that is to be taught;

✦ Student teachers need extendedopportunities to deepen their ownunderstanding of the subject matter andskill that they will be expected to teach;

✦ Student teachers need to deepen theirunderstanding of how students learn thecontent; and

✦ Student teachers need to develop variousways of representing and conveying thatcontent in teaching.

It may be no accident that some of the mosteffective professional development programsfor experienced teachers, for example, inliteracy and numeracy, owe their success tothe fact that they have these essentialcharacteristics. Teachers on these programssometimes ask ‘why wasn’t I taught this in myB.Ed?’ The recent appearance of omnibusP–10 teacher education programs, sometimes

23

containing no more than one semestercourses in a couple of content areas likemathematics and English over four years, givescause for some concern.

Action

1. Initiate a study to examine the utility tostate and territory registration bodies of anationally agreed framework of subjectmatter background qualificationsnecessary for registration across levelsand fields of teaching

The NSW Review of Teacher Education (p.153)provides one example of such a framework.(Victoria is currently conducting a review ofthe qualifications that should be required ofgraduates in specific fields of teaching.) Theframework would aim to provide a guide tothe nature and levels of content and subjectmatter knowledge that graduates need ineach registration field to perform theirteaching duties effectively. This is notnecessarily equivalent to familiarity with agiven state’s curriculum standards framework.

2. Such a study should also examinerecent developments in methods forassessing content and content-specificpedagogical knowledge for their utilityto state and territory registrationbodies and universities

New methods for assessing pedagogicalcontent knowledge are emerging. These havethe potential to be valuable instruments forpromoting learning relevant to professionalstandards as well. They focus, for example, ontasks that beginning teachers should be ableto perform to engage student actively withthe content they are learning.

Consideration could be given to establishing ashort-term pilot project to develop and trialsome of these assessment methods.Developing these standards and assessmentscould become one of the ongoing functionsof an Australian Education Council, actingon the advice of State and Territory Ministersand Registration Boards (or their equivalent).

3. Performance-based assessmentsfor registration

Explore the feasibility and utility of amajor national research project todevelop performance standards forentry to the profession

All states and territories have standards andsystems for meeting their responsibilities toensure that entrants to the profession arecompetent to practice. What role might aNational Framework play in enhancing theseefforts? What service might it provide?

Action

The minimalist position

There are obvious advantages in aligningstandards to assist mutual recognition ofpeople who have met standards of entryacross the states and territories. But whatexactly would be aligned in an exercise likethis? In terms of the discussion earlier in thispaper about standards, is it to be the wholestandards system, which includes content,evidential and performance standards, or justthe generic standards? Will it be the surfacefeatures of what is written in the contentstandards, or, will it to be what it takes to meetthe performance standards?

If it is simply the content of what is in currentsets of generic competencies that is to bealigned, it would take a reasonably intelligentperson a few days to do the job – but states andterritories would gain little from the exercise.In fact many have carried out this kind ofexercise before. Reynolds (1992) and Dwyer(1994) have probably done the most thoroughwork on this kind; reviewing research on thegeneric tasks that beginning teachers shouldbe able to perform. There are many examplesof generic sets of standards here and overseas,and syntheses of them as well.

There is little need for any more work in thisarea, as there is a high level of consistencyabout the main elements or categories. But, asargued above, it has to be recognised that thisway of developing standards has severelimitations, if the aim of content standards isto explicate what teachers really need toknow to pull off these tasks successfully.


24

What is lacking are valid or reliable methodsfor assessing performance against thestandards, methods or tasks, which, inthemselves, are vehicles for development, self-evaluation and reflection. Such methods arepossible, but they have not been developed tosuit the Australian educational context.

The extended option: Make registration aprocess of learning, not an event

Recent reviews and reports on teachereducation agree about the need to make aclear distinction between gaining a universityqualification and gaining full entry to theprofession. The preparation of a teacher isonly just beginning at graduation. The rubberstamp days when registration was simplyautomatic on evidence of completion of auniversity program in teacher education arecoming to an end. Registration increasinglymeans gaining a qualification and completingsuccessfully an induction period, including astaged series of performance assessment tasksintegrated with the normal work of abeginning teacher. These assessments wouldbe designed to promote development towardmeeting the entry performance standards.

Current state and territory initiatives toimprove teacher quality consistently point tothe importance of a period of induction andmentoring before full registration.Queensland has required a period ofprovisional registration for many years. Theproposed Victorian Institute of Teaching, forexample, will develop performance standardsrequired for full registration. The Ramseyreport (2000) does not recommendcompulsory registration, but makes‘accreditation’ for APT1 a necessary conditionof career progression from ‘graduate associate’.It recommends that the proposed NSWInstitute of Teachers should,

‘establish effective processes for thedevelopment, validation and assessment ofsuch standards based on appropriate modelsof professional development.’ (p. 215)

Earlier sections in this paper indicated some ofthe complexity involved in establishing validperformance standards systems for high stakespurposes such as registration.

The message is clear from too many half-bakedteacher evaluation schemes. Do not venture intothis field of performance assessment unless there is aclear possibility of doing it well – in ways that areprofessionally and publicly credible, legallydefensible and psychometrically rigorous.

Action

(1) Initiate a program of research thatwill lead to the development of arange of standards-based performanceassessments for the registration ofbeginning teachers.

(2) Develop assessment tasks that can betailored to specific fields of teaching

Considerable work has been done in Australiaon generic standards for beginning teachers,but less work has been done on developingmethods to assess whether they have attainedthose standards. To reap the full benefits forteacher education and quality assurance,standards need to be linked to assessments ofperformance that matter, such as decisionsabout registration or readiness to enter theprofession.

To date, little research has been done todevelop rigorous methods that state educationauthorities might use to assess whetherbeginning teachers have attained thesestandards of performance. The reliability ofcurrent methods is open to question.

One option suggested here is to establish anational project to develop new methods forassessing beginning teacher performance. Theproject should, of course, be conducted in fullcollaboration with education authorities andteacher organisations. It should aim to providea service that state education authorities andregistration bodies can use if they choose, notimpose some national system on them.

Implementation: If there were a bodysuch as the proposed AEC above, itwould be appropriate for the AEC toundertake such a project. Alternatively,MCEETYA could establish a researchprogram itself.

The main stages in such a project wouldinclude:

✦ Synthesis of standards in current stateand territory frameworks. Furtherdevelopment by national standardscommittees specific to particular levels ofschooling and subject areas;

25

✦ Development and trialing of newmethods for assessing performance forfeasibility, validity, reliability;

✦ Developing programs for training andaccrediting state-based assessors; identifyingbenchmarks, setting standards, weightingassessments, etc, to make the program fullyoperational.

The likely costs of developing a performance-based registration would be quite high. Anappropriate comparison would be the costs ofdeveloping curriculum standards andassessments for students. A national projecton performance-based standards would be amore efficient use of resources and expertise.Full development and implementationwould take at least five years.

Once validated, the methods of assessment,and training programs in how to use them,would be made available to state educationauthorities, and other relevant agencies suchas teacher registration bodies and teachereducation institutions to adapt and use inways relevant to the state context.

Teacher educators will use these standardsand assessments to enhance the quality oftheir teacher education programs. Beginningteachers themselves will use the standards as aguide to their own learning and what theywill be expected to know and be able to dobefore gaining entry to the profession.

Another, perhaps, is that courses themselvesmight be assessed for accreditation in terms ofthe extent to which they enable beginningteachers to attain the standards. This isconsistent with the trend in other professionstowards outcomes-based approaches toaccrediting preparatory courses.

While the development of coherent and well-grounded teaching standards is not easy, thedevelopment of rigorous methods of assessingteacher performance (and the training ofassessors to use them reliably) is much morecomplex. As mentioned above, however,valuable research and development has beendone in the US and Australia is building itsown capacity to do this work.

4. Performance-based certification

Establish a national system ofprofessional certification for highlyaccomplished teachers

✦ Develop a national standards framework forlevels of practice beyond those required forentry to the profession

✦ Build performance assessments as vehicles forprofessional learning

✦ Support the development of professionallearning infrastructure with the capacity toengage all teachers in the kinds of professionaldevelopment that will help them developtoward higher standard of practice

✦ Encourage education authorities to developincentives and recognition for teachers whogain professional certification tailored to theirown needs

Certification

Perhaps the most significant step thatMCEETYA could take at this time is tosponsor a national effort to build a nationalcertification system for highly accomplishedteachers. Widespread debate about the need toreform career structures for teachers has beengoing on for many years. The time is ripe foraction.

Implementation of the Advanced Skills Teacherfailed for many reasons, but the need forbetter systems to recognise and reward goodteachers and pay them what they are worth isgreater than ever. The absolutely necessarycondition for any lasting reforms in this areaare valid standards and performanceassessments.

Most state and territory employingauthorities are undertaking initiatives to givegreater recognition to teachers for evidence ofprofessional development. These initiativeswould only be reinforced by a national effortto build a performance-based professionalcertification system. Certification could betargeted most effectively at standardsexpected of teachers at the top of the existingsalary scale for classroom teachers.Professional recognition is an area ripe forinter-governmental cooperation, economy ofscale and productive links with the currentefforts of the profession to providecertification.


26

The Level 3 Classroom Teacher initiative inWA, and the ETWR and Leading Teacherprocedures in Victoria, both recognise theneed for valid state-wide standards andassessments external to the school. Thisrequirement is built into the EBA’s in thosestates. WA even contracts out the task ofassessing teacher performance for the Level 3.In Victoria the proposed VIT will provideadvanced certification, assisted by ‘recognised’professional associations. NSW is consideringrecommendations for a three-tier‘accreditation’ system. Tasmania has asuccessful professional recognition program,which is heading toward being performance-based and the Northern Territory has itsTeachers of Exemplary Practice.

The Commonwealth has given strong supportto the development of professional standardsthrough the QTP initiative and through ARCfunding to assist national teacher associationsto develop standards and assessments forhighly accomplished teaching. The AustralianEducation Union also gives clear support tothe idea of national certification and theAustralian College of Education has played acritical role in facilitating national forums andfostering debate.

The Senate Report (1998), A Class Act, called fora national system for professional certificationin the following terms:

A system of professional recognition forteachers must be established which is basedon the achievement of enhanced knowledgeand skills and which retains teachers at thefront line of student learning. Suchknowledge and skills should be identified,classified and assessed according to criteriadeveloped by expert panels drawn from theprofession. Education authorities shouldstructure remuneration accordingly. (p. 7–8)

Current initiatives across states and territoriesto provide incentives and recognition forgood teaching indicate that a nationalcertification system could meet a real needand provide a valuable service. Employingauthorities could make a significantcontribution to the quality of eduction bystrengthening the market for highlyaccomplished teachers.

The profession is demonstrating its ability toreach a consensus on standards for highlyquality teaching. These standards indicatethat the profession has the capacity to laydown its own long-term goals for theprofessional development of its members.

A certification system provides a basis for:

✦ Improving the effectiveness ofprofessional development, by clarifyingwhat the profession expects its membersto get better at with experience andestablishing a standards-guided system forcontinuing professional learning withthe capacity to engage all teachers acrossthe profession.

✦ Improving career path opportunities andpay systems for classroom teachers whoattain those standards.

✦ Providing, thereby, stronger incentives forall teachers to engage in long termprofessional development focused onstudent learning and guided bychallenging profession-defined teachingstandards.

✦ Strengthening the contribution theprofession makes to leadership inteaching, accountability and qualityassurance.

A national certification body for teachersshould have one core function; to provide asystem of standards and assessments that iscredible to all parties, including the public,governments, education authorities, andteachers.

Certification standards are not competitivestandards for ‘super’ or ‘elite’ teachers. Theyrepresent the profession’s conception of thestandards that most qualified or registered teachersshould be able to attain over the first ten totwenty years, given appropriate opportunitiesfor continuing professional learning.

Performance assessment for certificationserves the important psychological functionof providing teachers with professionalrecognition based on a rigorous assessment ofthe quality of their practice by respected,expert, trained peers.

A national certification system provides aservice to employers and the public seeking validand independent assessments about a teacher’slevel of professional knowledge relative toprofession-wide standards. Professionalcertification should also be distinguishedfrom performance management proceduresthat are properly the responsibility ofemploying authorities.

27

The presence of a certification system maydiscourage those who do not reach standardsfor highly accomplished practice after ten tofifteen years from remaining in the profession.

A standards-based professional developmentsystem linked to certification is complementaryto, not a replacement for, the in-serviceeducation that employers should provide tosupport the implementation of changes andreforms they have initiated. That, properly,should remain the responsibility of employers,but, as in any profession, employing authoritiescan not and should not be expected to takeresponsibility for all professional development.But, as in any profession, professionaldevelopment is more than keeping up withpolicy changes made by governments andemploying authorities.

Professional certification and registrationneed to be carefully distinguished. They servedifferent functions and are normally carriedout by different agencies. Registration inregulated occupations is compulsory and,properly, a responsibility of the state. Incontrast, professional certification isvoluntary and is primarily for providingendorsement that practitioners can meet highperformance standards.

Moving on

The debate about a professional certification iswell rehearsed and generally understood. Thereis widespread recognition that advantageswould be gained by all from the developmentof a national framework for standards at the topend of highly accomplished practice, includingteacher unions, state governments and theCommonwealth (QTP initiative). The hardquestion is how to move from where we are to aprofession that actually has some realprofessional responsibilities, such ascertification, with which it is entrusted.

A dilemma for governments is how to sponsorand encourage what amounts to theprofessionalisation of teaching (strengtheningsystems to define and apply professionalstandards) without undermining their ownresponsibilities. Tensions inevitably arisebetween political and professionalresponsibility in any attempt to establishsystems for standards and professionalaccountability. We need a conception ofprofessional accountability as well asministerial accountability.

Questions have to be answered: Where doeslegitimate authority rest for teacherevaluation and teacher accountability? Onwhat conceptual foundation should teachingstandards be based? Who has the authority, orthe expertise, to develop standards for whatteachers should know and be able to do? Howshould procedures for assessing teacherperformance be developed and validated.Who should apply those procedures and howshould they be trained?

It is increasingly common to hear seniorgovernment officials say that the developmentof teaching standards is not their business;rather, it is something they are looking for theprofession to do. There are now many moresigns that this is just what the profession iswilling and able to do. In 1999, four majorteacher associations embarked on projects todevelop advanced professional standards andperformance assessments for the professionalcertification of highly accomplished teachersin science, mathematics and English. Theseprojects were welcomed generally by state andterritory systems. Several have supportedthese projects and been closely involved.

Each of these projects is now close to completingtheir work. The Australian Science TeachersAssociation has launched its ‘Standards forHighly Accomplished Teachers of Science’(ASTA, 2002) and will have the capacity to offerits own certification in the next year or so.

Two issues arise from these developments:

✦ How can similar initiatives from otherteacher associations be encouraged?Several have made it clear they want tomove down the same path.

✦ How can these initiatives be built on andcoordinated?

The 1998 Senate Report on the status ofteaching conceived of a national body thatwould provide an umbrella organisation forthe development and operation of acertification system, inclusive of allstakeholders. There would be a clear need forsuch a body to ensure comparability acrossthe standards and the assessments for eachcertification field, if employers and unionswere to give recognition. Teachers will rightlyexpect the standards and work required beingcomparable across certification fields.


28

Stance

No existing body has the capacity, or acceptabilityacross the professional educational community, toundertake the role of a national professionalcertification body for teachers. Any serious attemptto introduce and operate a professionalcertification system will depend on the creation ofan entirely new kind of body in Australianeducation.

Options

1. Basic option: Initiate a research project toreview current standards and methodsused by employing authorities to assessteachers for promotion, as teachers.Synthesise this work into a set of contentstandards for use at the local level.

Bolder options

2. Commission a national research project todevelop standards and performanceassessments that will be funded by andtailored to the needs of those states andterritories currently considering theintroduction of their own systems foradvanced certification or accreditation.

3. Investigate the feasibility of establishing anew independent, expert national bodywith the sole function of providing anadvanced certification function, separatefrom, but with a similar constitution to,the proposed Australian EducationCouncil. This body should embrace allstakeholders from government, teachers’organisations, employing authorities,business and the public, but have amajority of practising classroom teachers.

4. Incorporate the certification function intothe constitution of the proposedAustralian Education Council. (c/f. theAMC now plays a role in relation toaccrediting new specialist colleges andCommonwealth funding assists in theestablishment of accreditation procedures.)

Note

Professional certification or accreditation is notnecessarily a service that all employingauthorities will want to use, at least notinitially. This should be expected. Some statesand territories appear ready to move in thisdirection, others have their own schemes. Infact it may be wiser to start with just one or twostates and territories and build out from thereto more states as the operation gains credibility.There will be a lot to learn how to establish andoperate a national certification before scalingup. Rigorous research will be essential. But itwill not be necessary to have total consensusbefore taking action in this area. Better to startsmall and think big, as usual.

Several recent reports on teaching and teachereducation point to the need to create newindependent institutions that will enablepolicy makers and the profession to talk onequal terms and to exercise their sharedresponsibility for the provision of qualityconditions for student learning. Unlike mostprofessions, teaching lacks nationalorganisations that speak independently forthe profession as a whole on matters ofquality in teaching and teacher education.

29

References

Australian Council of Deans of Education.(1998). Preparing a Profession: Report of theNational Standards and Guidelines for TeacherEducation Project. Canberra: AustralianCouncil of Deans of Education.

Australian Science Teachers Association.(2002). National professional standards for highlyaccomplished teachers of science. Canberra: ASTANational Science Standards Committee.

Brophy, J. (Ed.) (1990). Teachers’ knowledge ofsubject matter as it relates to their teaching practice.Volume 2. Advances in Research on Teaching.Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press

Cameron, H. (2001). Monitoring standards forprofessional education. Journal of VocationalEducation and Training. 53(2), 279–300.

Carpenter, T., Fennema, E., and Franke, M.(1996). Cognitively-guided instruction: Aknowledge base for reform in primarymathematics instruction. Elementary SchoolJournal, 97(1), 1–20.

Darling-Hammond, L. & Sclan, E.M. (1996).Who teaches and why: Dilemmas of buildinga profession for Twenty-First Century Schools.In J. Sikula (Ed.), Handbook of Research onTeacher Education, Second Edition (p. 67–101).New York: Macmillan.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). Teacher qualityand student achievement: A review of statepolicy evidence. Education Policy AnalysisArchives, 8(1), 1–49.

Dwyer. C. (1994). Development of a knowledgebase for the PRAXIS III: Classroom PerformanceAssessment Criteria. Princeton, NJ: EducationalTesting Service.

Elmore, R. (1996). Getting to scale witheducational reform. In S.H. Fuhrman & J. A.O’Day (Eds.), Rewards and Reform: CreatingEducational Incentives that Work. Jossey-Bass.

Ingvarson, L. (1998). Professionaldevelopment as the pursuit of professionalstandards: The standards-based professionaldevelopment system. Teaching and TeacherEducation, 14(1), 127–140.

Ingvarson, L.C. (2001). Strengthening theProfession: A comparison of recent reforms in theUSA and the UK. Australian College ofEducation Seminar Series, Canberra.(acer.edu.au/research/TaL)

Joint Committee on Standards forEducational Evaluation. (1988). The PersonnelEvaluation Standards: How to Assess Systems forEvaluating Educators. Newbury Park, CA:Corwin Press, Inc.

Kennedy, M. (1998). Form and substance ininservice teacher education (Researchmonograph no. 13). Arlington, VA: NationalScience Foundation.

Ministerial Council on Education,Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.(1999). The Adelaide Declaration on NationalGoals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century.Canberra: MCEETYA.

Ramsey, G. (2000). Quality matters. Revitalisingteaching: Critical times, critical choices. (Report ofthe Review of Teacher Education.) Sydney:NSW Department of Education

Reynolds, A. (1992). What is competentbeginning teaching? A review of theliterature. Review of Educational Research,62(1), 1–35.

Roth, R.A. (1996). Standards for certification,licensure and Accreditation. In J. Sikula (Ed.),Handbook of Research on Teacher Education,Second Edition (p. 67–101). New York:Macmillan.

Senate Employment, Education and TrainingCommittee (1998). A class act: Inquiry into thestatus of the teaching profession. Canberra: AGPS.

Sykes, G. & Plastrik, P. (1993). Standard setting aseducational reform. Washington, DC: AmericanAssociation of Colleges for Teachers ofEducation.


30

31

This is an example of a coherent standards framework specifically designed for the assessmentof beginning teacher performance

A1:

A2:

A3:

A4:

A5:

Becoming familiar with relevant aspects of students’ background knowledge and experiences.

Domain A – Organizing Content Knowledge for Student Learning

Articulating clear learning goals for the lesson that are appropriate for the students.

Demonstrating an understanding of the connections between the content that was learned previously, the current content, and content that remains to be learned in the future.

Creating or selecting teaching methods, learning activities, and instructional materials or other resource that are appropriate for the students and that are aligned with the goals of the lesson.

Creating or selecting evaluation strategies that are appropriate for the students and that are aligned with the goals of the lesson.

C1:

C2:

C3:

C4:

Making learning goals and instructional procedures clear to students.

Domain C – Teaching for Student Learning

Making content comprehensible to students.

Encouraging students to extend their thinking.

Monitoring students’ understanding of content through a variety of means, providing feedback to students to assist learning, and adjusting learning activities as the situation demands.

D1:

D2:

D3:

D4:

Reflecting on the extent to which the learning goals were met.

Domain D – Teacher Professionalism

Demonstrating a sense of efficacy.

Building professional relationships with colleagues to share teaching insights and to coordinate learning activities for students.

Communicating with parents or guardians about student learning.

B1:

B2:

B3:

B4:

B5:

Creating a climate that promotes fairness.

Domain B – Creating an Environment for Student Learning

Establishing and maintaining rapport with students.

Communicating challenging learning expectations to each student.

Establishing and maintaining consistent standards of classroom behaviour.

Making the physical environment as safe and conducive to learning as possible.

Attachment 1PRAXIS III Standards framework (ETS)


32

TeacherCategory

Teaching Standard Used Salary LevelMinimum Ranges

Other Features

Accomplished National BoardCertification

Administered by nationalprofessional body

Top: 2.0 x Beginningplus 15%

3-4 steps

Comprehensive review once everyfive years: no maximum yearsin category




ProfessionalCareer 3

PRAXIS III Advanced

Administered locally(principal)

Top: 2.0 x Beginning

3-4 steps


PRAXIS III Proficient

Administered locally(principal)


3-4 steps


INTASC, fullprofessional license

Administered by statestandards board


3-4 steps

Novice PRAXIS II Content &Professional Knowledge Test

Administered by statestandards board


2 steps only

Maximum of 5 years in category

Apprentice Initial provisional license Beginning Salary Maximum of 2 years in category

Attachment 2A proposed State (Iowa) framework of teaching standards and career stages

(for local adaption)

NB:

The Brief (2000) for this study included:

1. ‘Create a professional teacher salary schedule that links salary to levels of performance. . . Create astructure that sets out the expectation and real possibility for a teacher to be excellent.’

2. Create a linked system of standards and performance assessments using:

✦ The INTASC standards for teacher licensure (assessment using portfolio tasks) and the Praxis II tests forcontent and professional knowledge.

✦ The PRAXIS III standards for career teachers (an evaluation system that can assess teachers to fourdifferent levels:- Below basic- Basic- Proficient- Advanced

✦ The National Board Standards for experienced, highly accomplished teaching.

3. Benchmark the new salary framework to the competitive labour market for recruiting and retainingteachers in Iowa.

4. Ensure principal licensure includes evidence of expertise in performance review.

5. Provide higher salary stages for teachers who reach high professional standards, such as National BoardCertified teachers.

development of a national standards framework for the teaching profession. acer policy briefs. issue...

Documents