Providing professional recognition: lessons from the US National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

Principals in Victorian state schools now decide who gains full entry to the teaching profession, and who shall be recognised as having attained advanced professional standards. These new responsibilities for principals and schools are formidable. The article argues that they will not be met without the parallel development of legally defensible standards and methods for conducting performance assessment by bodies external to schools. The capacity to provide comparable and unbiased assessments of teaching ability from school to school will also be an important political and legal consideration. The US National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has been attempting to develop such a capacity over the past eight years. The article summarises the work of the NBPTS and examines some of its implications for Australia.