Raising the Standard: A 15-Year Retrospective, 1987-2002.

This report describes the past 15 years of work by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) to raise the standards for teacher quality. The NBPTS identified five core propositions that describe the knowledge, skills, and dispositions characterizing accomplished teaching. It created professional standards for K-12 teachers, establishing an assessment system and voluntary certification process in every area of teaching. There has been a dramatic increase in recent years in the number of states and districts offering incentives for NBPTS-certified teachers. NBPTS certification is now recognized as a symbol of professional teaching excellence. Some of the other accomplishments of the NBPTS have included commissioning new research about effectiveness and revising and updating standards and assessments. This report includes essays by an NBPTS board member, NBPTS certified teachers, a teacher educator, NBPTS teachers who became teachers of the year, and a businessman who builds partnerships between business and education leaders. (SM)