Test Pilots

By Ann Bradley

It is a cold, blustery day in late November, and teachers Rick Wormeli and Diane Hughart are perched on the tattered brown plaid couch that takes up one end of the paneled trailer that is Wormeli's classroom. Their laps are full of papers, folders, and cardboard boxes. They are feeling a bit overwhelmed.

The two English teachers, colleagues at Herndon Middle School, located in a Virginia suburb of the nation's capital, have volunteered to take part in a project that is widely viewed as one of the most significant developments in the teaching profession in decades.

But just what that commitment means is only now becoming clear to them. On the strength of a little bit of information and a lot of curiosity, they and a handful of other teachers from around the nation have signed on to field-test new assessments developed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The board has spent the last seven years creating a system of voluntary national certification to recognize outstanding teachers. The assessments, which ultimately will determine who gets certified and who does not, are nothing like the paper-and-pencil tests so familiar to teachers. Instead, Wormeli, Hughart, and the other teachers participating in the pilot test will spend the next few months putting together portfolios of their best work in the classroom. These portfolios will include videotapes of exemplary lessons, samples of students' work, testimonies from col- leagues, and the teachers' own written comments on their...