National Board Certification for Teacher Leaders

As the nation rebuilds its educational infrastructure to more effectively educate its children, we need stronger educational leaders. Teacher leaders and principals are critical to advancing the nation’s agenda for school reform. Certification programs for both represent new ways to develop, recognize and retain top school-based leaders.

National Board Certification for Teacher Leaders is a new program under development by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards NBPTS). The program builds on the National Board’s 20-year, highly successful program, National Board Certification for teachers and school counselors.

Teacher leaders, working with principals, are instructional and organizational change agents who have a critical impact on school, teacher and student success. This positive learning environment, championed by these new certifications, advances student achievement and supports the recruitment and retention of accomplished teachers.

NBCTs throughout the nation recognize the importance of school-based leadership in creating a culture of learning and supporting accomplished teachers.  Reports from a series of state and national summits on supporting and staffing high-need schools, attended by hundreds of NBCTs, ranked school-building leadership among the most important factors in recruiting and retaining accomplished teachers and advancing student learning.

National Board Certification for Teacher Leaders and National Board Certification for Principals are both moving forward. Already, the National Board—in collaboration with several committees representing teachers, principals, national organizations and other stakeholders—has developed and finalized core propositions that form the foundation for both certifications. More than 5,000 educators nationwide (including 2,500 principals) provided feedback to help NBPTS ensure that these core propositions reflect current and future accomplished educational leadership.

NBPTS will now embark on developing the standards, assessment, scoring rubric and scoring for teacher leader and principal certification.

Keep checking back for updates on the development of a teacher leader certification. To be informed of updates as they happen, sign up for the Teacher Leader Certification email update list.