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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 18, 2003

News Release

Statement of NEA President Reg Weaver on the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence

The American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) teacher certification process is a sham and demeaning to the teaching profession. Instead of helping to professionalize teaching, ABCTE demeans it by lowering teacher preparation standards and promoting a "quick fix" experiment on our children.

The National Education Association encourages career-switchers and interested professionals to become teachers. And we recognize that many of these individuals have life and educational experiences that greatly enrich what they can bring to a classroom. But we cannot make assumptions about what they know and are able to do.

Research and practice has shown that licensing standards should require beginning teachers to possess a wide range of skills before they enter the classroom. These include a deep knowledge of the subjects they teach, a firm understanding of how students learn, the ability to help all students achieve to high standards, the capacity to diagnose and respond to various learning needs, and the aptitude to instill a passion for learning in students.

ABCTE's reliance on a single test to measure all these skills is shortsighted. And its reliance on video and audio of classroom scenarios to assess what a candidate knows and can do is an absurd proposition. There are no shortcuts to becoming a quality teacher.

The teacher shortage is a symptom of the teacher retention problem. One-third of new teachers leave the profession within three years and almost one-half leave within five years. Without quality teacher preparation, ABCTE is setting up good people for failure.

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The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing 2.7 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers.