National Board Certification for Educational Leaders
National Board Certification for Educational Leaders (NBCEL) is the first national integrated standards and assessment program focused on accomplished educational leaders—principals, assistant principals, and teacher leaders. This National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) program introduces an accomplished process for developing, recognizing, and retaining these leaders—the people who are responsible for ensuring the success of high-performing, results-oriented learning communities.
National Board Certification for principals is the first phase of NBCEL, which builds on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards 20-year, highly successful program, National Board Certification for teachers and school counselors. Effective principals working with teacher leaders 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.
Why educational leadership is important
NBPTS heard the unified voices of thousands of teachers, including National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs), who attended teacher summits across the country. These teachers ranked quality leadership among the most important factors in recruiting and retaining accomplished teachers and advancing student learning, especially in low-performing schools. Concurrently, administrator associations called for a program to identify accomplished leaders, those who could establish and lead high-performing learning environments.
NBPTS responded to the collective demands, collaborated with teacher associations, administrator associations and other education stakeholders, and developed a powerful, valid, and fair assessment system and voluntary national certification program for accomplished educational leaders.
National Board Core Propositions—the Cornerstone
The National Board has convened groups of educational leaders—teacher and administrator practitioners, researchers, academicians, business leaders and policymakers—to identify what accomplished leaders should know and be able to do. The result of the work of these forward-thinking groups is nine core propositions, the cornerstone of this landmark program. These core propositions define the essential domains of accomplished practice for educational leaders, representing a vision of how such practice looks today and how it will look in the future.
Why Education Needs NBCEL
Respected professions such as medicine, law, and architecture define the standards of quality practice for their members, taking responsibility for developing standards and assessments through which practitioners are certified as accomplished. Doing so enables members of the profession to identify accomplished practice, create a culture of professionalism, and develop professional learning in the field; consequently, they can recognize those who epitomize such practice. Although states set minimum requirements for licensing doctors, lawyers, and architects, the parameters of accomplishment in these professions are set by national bodies of the practitioners themselves, and the teaching profession should do the same.
Why the National Board Is Developing NBCEL
If America is to have world-class schools, it must have a world-class teaching force. If it to have a world-class teaching force, it must have world-class educational leaders.
With its origins grounded in the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, NBPTS has more than two decades of experience in developing high and rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do. Launched in 1987 as a teacher-led vehicle for professional standards, the NBPTS changed the national conversation about teaching excellence. From the beginning, teacher decision-making has been the hallmark of the National Board. The first National Board Certified Teachers were recognized in 1994, and since then, the effects of board certification on teaching practices and student learning have been the subject of many research studies, and many districts report that National Board Certification is one of the most productive, cost-effective forms of professional development available. Practitioners in the field still control the decisions of the National Board and that philosophy will continue with the certification of educational leadership.