WHEREAS, if blind and visually impaired students are to receive a quality education, they must be instructed by highly qualified vision teachers; and
WHEREAS, in 2010, The Maryland General Assembly and Governor O’Malley enacted legislation requiring the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) to create Braille standards for mathematics and English/Language Arts for students in grades K-12; and
WHEREAS, on September 25, 2012, The Maryland State Board of Education approved the implementation of the Maryland Common Core State Curriculum Frameworks for Braille: Mathematics and the Maryland Common Core State Curriculum Frameworks for Braille: English/Language Arts, standards that will potentially dramatically improve the quality of education for blind and visually impaired students in Maryland for many years; and
WHEREAS, this legislation also calls for an examination of teacher certification and re-certification requirements to ensure that vision teachers are able to instruct their students to meet these new standards; and
WHEREAS, MSDE is currently proposing certification and recertification recommendations to the Professional Standards and Teacher Education Board, the entity responsible for setting such criteria; and
WHEREAS, these recommendations, as currently drafted, do not adequately address a vision teacher’s competency in reading and writing Braille, because while they would require taking courses in reading and writing Braille, they do not require passing a competency test for certification; and
WHEREAS, The National Literary Braille Competency Test (NLBCT) has undergone a long development and is now available to be used as a validated professional standard for teachers of the visually impaired and other instructors of the Braille code; and
WHEREAS, the inclusion of the Braille Praxis Exam as an option for recertification, now under consideration in the MSDE recommendations, is simply inappropriate because it is too elementary; and
WHEREAS, even the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which authors the Praxis Exams describes them as “designed to assess subject matter knowledge and other competencies for individuals planning a career in teaching,”; and
WHEREAS, the process to create the Braille standards was very successful because MSDE sought input from advocates, teachers and parents, but thus far has failed to seek input from the same cross section of stakeholders regarding certification and recertification requirements; Now therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED, by the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland, in Convention assembled this tenth day of November, 2012, in the city of Annapolis, Maryland that this organization strongly urge MSDE to immediately convene a group of stakeholders including the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland and representatives from a University vision program to examine the current proposals and develop a stronger set of recommendations to be presented to the Professional Standards and Teacher Education Board; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this organization insist that the Professional Standards and Teacher Education Board adopt certification and recertification requirements for vision teachers that include testing of competency in Braille reading and writing comparable to that which is provided by the NLBCT.