The Professional Educator Standards Board meet Wednesday and Thursday in Spokane. The agenda featured a lot of good updates, as well as some interesting discussion.
On the updates side:
- The ProTeach portfolio is plowing ahead — to earn Professional Certification educators will need to complete a portfolio (ProTeach) — the submission webportal looks very user-friendly and appears on track.
- Looks like Washington will participate in a cross-state pilot of a pre-service teacher assessment.
- Judy Hartmann, K-12 policy advisor to Gov. Gregoire, updated the PESB on Race to the Top funds and Washington’s proposed plan of action – we will apply in Round 1 in December, receive feedback from the U.S. Department of Education then submit a (hopefully successful) application for Round 2 in June 2010.
- Update from OSPI on implementing ESHB 2261 and areas involving the PEB.
- Survey results from first-year teachers and educators who complete alternate route programs provided some anecdotal insight into their experiences, but cannot be considered representative of all teachers in each cohort.
On the discussion side:
- Length of residency certificate: Currently Residency Certificates can be valid for up to nine years. The PESB needs to decide if this is the timeline it wants for beginning educators. ESHB 2261 and PESB discussion in July indicate seven years may be the more appropriate limit. This issue brought up a lot of questions for PESB members, especially around those educators that take time off for medical reasons, or have trouble finding teaching positions.
- Master-level certification: ESHB 2261 tasked the PESB with creating a new tier of certification. A drafting group working on the standards for Master Certification presented, and highlighted that a Master educator would be one who not only improves student learning but also works with fellow educators to improve their classrooms. Discussion focused around confusion over the need for Master Certification, since it’s meant to be synonymous with National Board certification. Other concerns over cost to educators, as well as no associated pay increase with obtaining this level of certification [Jennifer Wallace and others clarified that it is the intent that the educator pay model be revised to match certification levels.]
