Notes that almost everybody has contributed to the list of requirements for teacher certification except teachers. Argues that the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Project provides one place for teachers to build community and shape standards. Hopes that the project will become an important professional development opportunity…

Discusses what national board certification means and the current status of the certification program in English language arts. Offers an interim evaluation of what has been accomplished to date. Describes the Early Adolescence/English Language Arts Standards report and rubrics for evaluating teaching. Discusses what the profession of English can…

Describes the author's highest hope for the current National Board of Professional Teaching Standards Early Adolescence/English Language Arts certification process. Looks at factors that could undermine the potential benefits that a National Teaching Certificate can have on the profession. Encourages middle school teachers to support the project…

Describes an expert panel member's experiences in working with Educational Testing Service to redesign the scoring for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Early Adolescence/English Language Arts Assessment. Maintains that a less mechanistic and more valid scoring system could have been developed if criticism and open discussion…

Sketches three criteria for thinking about an assessment of teaching. Discusses assessment versus professional development, and argues that even if assessment of teaching is only a test, intended to separate the "accomplished" from the "unaccomplished," then it is not a vehicle for reform or change or professional development,…

Relates the experiences and reflections of a teacher who was a field test participant for the Early Adolescence/English Language Arts Assessment of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. (SR)

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)

Presents questions and concerns of a teacher who served as a scoring assessor for the Early Adolescence/English Language Arts field test of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, run by the Educational Testing Service. (SR)

Presents the experiences, questions, and concerns of a teacher who served as a scoring assessor, evaluating the planning and teaching exercises submitted by teachers in the field test for National Board Certification in the Early Adolescence/English Language Arts Assessment. (SR)

Draws analogies between the character Lydgate in George Eliott's "Middlemarch" and the medical profession on the one hand, and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and the teaching profession on the other hand. (SR)

Argues that in its testing procedures, announcements of results, and methods of review, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is becoming a testing company when it should be becoming a professional certification agency. Discusses standards-based scoring, local certification versus national certification, individual applications…