Good teachers, excellent teachers

Teachers who meet the Accomplished Teacher standards should gain access to further salary steps that rise to double the starting salary for teachers, or about $100,000.

The standard for Accomplished Teacher should be set at a level that most teachers should be able to attain after about seven to ten years of experience with appropriate opportunities for professional learning.

Certification should be based on performance, judged by the quality of opportunities for student learning a teacher provides, not years of service, academic course completion or value-added measures based on standardised tests of student achievement.

The idea of an “alternative” career path for good teachers (for example, the “advanced skills teacher” concept) has been tried in most states and it has failed. If it is to have a significant impact on the quality of teaching, the Australian Government’s strategy should instead make certification as an accomplished teacher by an independent professional body a prerequisite for gaining executive and school leadership positions, as well as moving to higher salary levels for those who wish to focus on teaching.

This view may not be popular, but it is well justified by many research studies showing that the most effective school leaders are highly credible to teachers as expert teachers themselves. Its main virtue is to provide powerful incentives for all teachers to seek methods of professional development that lead to improved student outcomes.

Professional certification should be portable, across states and school systems, not limited to public schools, or particular jurisdictions. We do not have one certification system for doctors who work in public hospitals and another for those who work in private hospitals. It would be a waste of resources to establish different certification systems for different states and different school systems.

Developing such systems is complex and expensive. Rewarding teachers on the basis of their performance requires a rigorous system for measuring the quality of teachers’ work. However, there is ample research evidence now that this can be done in ways that are reliable, valid and fair, though few employing authorities would have the resources to do this alone.

The establishment of a national, independent professional agency with the core function of providing a rigorous, voluntary certification system for all teachers who wish to demonstrate that they have attained advanced levels of professional performance is required. This agency should see its main role as providing a credible certification service to all employers and the public, not only to the profession. The agency should live or die depending on the validity and credibility of its assessment processes.

The national professional agency should have all the players around the table to ensure the system will be utilised, including employing authorities, teacher unions and associations. While the system for providing certification should be profession-wide, the way it is recognised and rewarded will vary from one jurisdiction to another.

Most importantly it will need to be embraced by teachers themselves. This will only happen when they become convinced not only of its rigour and its advantages for their own professional lives and careers, but also of the student learning gains that must come when young people are taught by teachers of proven high accomplishment.