The topic of this "Perspectives" column is "Requiring a Proficiency Level as a Requirement for U.S. K-12 Teacher Licensure." In 1998, the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) began to work with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), which accredits teacher education programs preparing public K-12 teachers for licensure in all 50 states, to identify clear standards that language teacher education programs should be required to use to prepare licensed language teachers for K-12 settings. The development of those language teacher education standards involved an iterative process of review and discussion of several drafts by the profession at national, regional, and state conferences, before a final version was approved (ACTFL/NCATE, 2002). These ACTFL/NCATE standards for accreditation of K-12 language teacher education programs involve eight program components and six content standards. The contributors to this "Perspectives" column explore one of those ACTFL/NCATE standards for K-12 language teacher licensure: To be accredited by NCATE, K-12 language teacher licensure programs housed in colleges of education must require prospective language teachers to attain a minimum of Advanced Low (for languages such as French, German, Spanish) or Intermediate High (for languages like Arabic, Chinese) proficiency on ACTFL-approved assessment measures. The first article in the column by Brigid Burke raises a number of questions about this standard and the way it is being implemented. Her article foregrounds the anguished voices of aspiring language teachers who could not pass a language proficiency exam at those required levels in spite of having spent years studying the language and earning top grades doing so in a higher education foreign language department. Professor Burke's "position" paper was sent to the other contributors for response, and their responses and observations comprise the bulk of this column of "Perspectives". Finally, John Norris was asked to read all the contributions and draw upon his experience in language assessment, program evaluation, and language pedagogy to write a synthesis and reflective coda summing things up. (Contains 2 notes.)