AFT local serves as a lifeline for N.M. teachers vying for licensure

Teachers in Albuquerque, N.M., are flocking to a new union-designed professional support system that is every bit as groundbreaking as the licensure system it was designed to support.

Under three-tier licensure adopted by the state four years ago, every teacher in New Mexico must create a professional development dossier (PDD). The dossier is designed to offer a rich view of each teacher’s knowledge and classroom skills—an electronic presentation that often mixes scanned traditional documents with video and other relatively new electronic media. The PPD has much in common with portfolios developed by candidates for advanced certification through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and it has become a linchpin of educator professionalism in New Mexico. Teachers must complete a state-accepted dossier to advance from probationary to professional licensure and may submit a second dossier as one option for moving to an advanced license.

The Albuquerque Teachers Federation (ATF) has long offered support to NBPTS candidates in the district, and the AFT affiliate immediately saw an opportunity to help teachers navigate this make-or-break requirement. Not only did teachers need guidance on how to create a strong dossier, many also needed help when it came to dossiers that harnessed new media, reports Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque Teachers  Federation and an NBPTS certified teacher. “Like many teachers, although I had learned how to incorporate technology in my classroom, I had not developed the skills needed to scan student work, embed videos of teaching and successfully upload a completed dossier,” Bernstein explains.

ATF has worked to fill dossier-related needs by training and deploying a staff of educators who are expert in all matters tied to dossier development. In the 2006-07 school year, Albuquerque teachers received dossier help through ATF-trained dossier instructors and three apprentice instructors. Six tech teachers also provided support. Union assistance ranges from a three-hour overview of the dossier requirement to overseeing small study groups and providing individual dossier readings. Teachers received tech advice and assistance at no-cost computer labs, and the union also helped teachers who were resubmitting a portfolio that wasn’t successful the first time. There was even a union-sponsored telephone hot line for help just before dossier deadlines.

Feedback “has consistently shown that the process of doing their dossier has been beneficial to their teaching—and that the guidance and support provided by our study groups was very effective,” Bernstein stresses.

Ramping up support

Last year, more than 260 teachers took advantage of the three-hour overview, reports ATF professional development coordinator Janet Montoya Schoeppner. On a typical day, the union’s hot line fielded between five and 10 questions as dossier deadlines drew near. Many teachers ask for assistance on how best to describe the work and achievement of their students, while those seeking advanced licensure are looking for ways to analyze their practice in a deeper way.

Schoeppner says there is synergy behind the success of the program: The state launched its new licensure system at roughly the same time the Albuquerque union was stepping up its efforts to help members in the professional arena. It was a beautiful fit, and “today, the word out there is ‘if you need help with your dossier, you call your union,’ ” Schoeppner says.

Not surprisingly, educators in Albuquerque and across the state are casting a nervous eye toward Washington, D.C., now that reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act has taken center stage. Congress, which is being pressured to fashion new hoops for teachers to jump through under a revised NCLB,  must resist changes that could  undercut promising efforts under way in places like New Mexico, Bernstein says.

New Mexico did two things right in creating a system that attached compensation to professional expertise and effectiveness. First, the state involved teachers in the design and second, it modeled the exhibition of professional ability after the National Board’s process, Bernstein points out. “The dossier has integrity and has more to do with assessing effective teaching than do schemes designed around inadequate, faulty standardized testing and misinformed views of teaching and learning.”