Latest Comment: What would you do?A clearer route with the Chartered Teacher scheme
Lawrence Ingvarson, Australian Council for Educational Research
Lawrence Ingvarson takes an objective look at the GTCS Chartered Teacher scheme and identifies many opportunities and challenges.
Many countries are looking for better ways to recognise and reward accomplished teachers, but there is much uncertainty about how this should be done. The Chartered Teacher scheme provides a model for others to emulate.
On my recent visit to Scotland I found that one of the most remarkable features of the scheme was the agreement between government, unions and employers on how to reform the teacher career structure, based on evidence of higher knowledge and performance based on standards.
One of the most remarkable features of the scheme was the agreement between government, unions and employers on how to reform the teacher career structure
A second unique feature was that stakeholders agreed to separate the system for assessing and providing certification for teachers (the responsibility of the General Teaching Council) from the system for providing financial recognition for that certification (the responsibility of the government).
This contrasts with England's Threshold scheme in which there is no separation, and headteachers assess teachers, an arrangement that has little credibility, largely because it is mired in the messy micro-politics of school life.
A third feature of the scheme is the quality of the infrastructure for standards-based professional learning that the GTCS has built, in collaboration with Scottish universities. Questions might be asked, however, about why universities should be the only providers. There are surely other routes and other providers, such as teachers' own professional associations.
Future challenges
The first challenge, as I see it, is to strengthen the involvement of teachers in all aspects of the scheme, from developing the standards, the methods of providing the evidence that teachers have met the standards and the procedures for assessing whether teachers have met the standards.
Another challenge is to conduct the research and development necessary to ensure that Chartered Teacher status is based on a valid, reliable and fair assessment of a teacher's classroom performance. The scheme will succeed or fade away depending on whether it is a valid measure of excellent teaching; and whether its decisions are credible, not only to teachers but to the wider public as well. It is unlikely that present arrangements, where the decision to award Chartered Teacher status is based on successful course completion, will be a convincing measure of whether a teacher's performance meets the Scottish Chartered Teacher criteria.
To ensure the validity and reliability of its certification, the GTCS should consider establishing an independent national system for assessing teachers for Chartered Teacher status. Within such a system universities and other providers could play a powerful supporting role, e.g. in assisting teachers to meet the standards and preparing them for the assessment.
The final challenge is what to do with teachers once they gain Chartered Teacher status. My suggestion is to mainstream the Chartered Teacher scheme: to make it a condition of eligibility for promotion to school leadership positions. Why shouldn't all prospective school leaders be able to show that they have attained the high standards of professional performance they will be encouraging other teachers to meet?
In Australia we found that it was a mistake to conceive of schemes for accomplished teachers in terms of providing an 'alternative' career path, which often turned out to be a deadend or sideline. Mainstreaming is well justified by many research studies, which show the most effective school leaders are highly credible to teachers as expert teachers themselves.
Finally, consideration might be given to bringing back the idea of a further professional career stage between Chartered Teacher and headteacher levels. This could be based on a further certification at a 'Leading Teacher' level, for which appropriate standards, including standards around leadership, would need to be developed. Such a move would complete the structural arrangements upon which a fully functional career path for teachers, based on excellent teaching, would be built.
This article is based on a longer paper titled 'Charting New Waters: Identifying and rewarding excellent Scottish teachers', delivered to the 2008 Chartered Teacher conference in Edinburgh.
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Latest comment...
would like to knowthe GTCS view on this scenario. I agree with Steve its a last option!
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