The number of states mandating competency testing of teachers grew from three in 1977 to 30 in 1982, and 12 states are in the planning stages. An emerging trend is the requirement of a year of internship prior to issuance of a teaching certificate. (MT)

This bibliography represents a personal selection, focusing primarily on the use of group paper-and-pencil tests to assess teacher competence. It is organized in terms of general information, political issues, legal issues, national teacher examinations, defining competence, measurement issues, and technical information. (MT)

A new inservice, two year educational program emphasizes demonstrated competency by holding teachers accountable for attaining given levels of competency in performing the essential tasks of teaching. It is for nondegree teachers with one-year certificates from preservice workshops who are working toward four-year provisional vocational…

This article suggests that current teacher licensure standards and processes need revision, and recommends new State certification agencies whose main concern would be to return authority to local districts to develop their own standards. (JH)

This article describes the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, which is establishing an assessment process to certify teachers who show a high level of competence. A hypothetical meeting in 1995 is described at which experienced teachers offer opinions on national certification discussing whether it is possible to measure quality.…

Presents the experiences and reflections of a teacher who was a field test participant for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certification, and who served on the Standard Setting Panel which defined levels performance on the Early Adolescence/English Language Arts Assessment. (SR)

Since its creation in 1987, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has implemented a national voluntary system to assess and certify teachers who meet rigorous teaching standards. Testimony from over 16,000 NBPTS certified teachers has revealed that the journey toward certification is often difficult, time-consuming, and…

This study investigates what teachers learn from a graduate-level course that prepares them to pursue an advanced form of professional teaching certification based on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). The study draws from Habermas's (1972, 1974) three knowledge constitutive interests--the technical, the practical, and…

Administrative data on fifth grade students in North Carolina shows that more highly qualified teachers tend to be matched with more advantaged students, both across schools and in many cases within them. This matching biases estimates of the relationship between teacher characteristics and achievement; we isolate this bias in part by focusing on…

Early childhood teacher certification became an issue in Kentucky in 1986 with the passage of a federal law giving responsibility for services for children under kindergarten age to public school districts. This article deals with: (1) the development of interdisciplinary early childhood education teacher certification requirements in the state of…

All but two of the states are in the process of implementing some form of mandatory teacher testing, if they have not already done so. However, the limitations of state procedures, i.e., different standards, approaches, and requirements, combined with significant improvement in evaluation techniques, have led to the call for a system of national…

This monograph analyzes the Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession's recommendations for a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, focusing upon the development and management of the proposed Board, and the assessment approaches used to implement the idea of national certification. While the task force recommends two levels of…

This brief review summarizes "What's Happening in Teacher Testing," a report from the U.S. Department of Education which provides information on teacher testing programs already in place. The report includes articles on testing and related areas, such as the history of teacher testing, legal considerations, and teacher supply and demand.…

Two major state-wide programs in Florida have adopted the Florida Performance Measurement System (FPMS) for the formative and/or summative evaluation of instruction--The Beginning Teacher Program and the Master Teacher Program. Since the state is responsible for compiling and reporting scores in a state-wide system, the Teacher Evaluation…