A full report is presented of testimony on teacher preparation given by witnesses before the subcommittee on postsecondary education. Included are the remarks and prepared statements of the following witnesses: (1) Marie D. Eldridge, Administrator of the National Center for Education Statistics, who discussed survey data on making teacher…

Use of nationally standardized tests to determine teacher competency continues to be a subject for review in state and federal courts. School district policies have promoted minimum score requirements as a basis for employment decisions concerning certification, hiring, renewal, promotion, and merit pay. Legal challenges to these policies focus…

The Georgia Teacher Certification Tests were developed and validated to be job-related and to reflect the minimum content knowledge that is necessary to teach in each certification area in Georgia classrooms. Three assessment instruments are used in evaluating the performance of preservice students and beginning teachers. The Teacher Performance…

The hypothesis that role-playing scenarios specifying full rhetorical contexts were a superior means of eliciting valid writing samples for the purpose of assessing compositional skills of prospective Florida teachers was tested. In addition, topics for use on the initial administrations of the Florida Teacher Competency Examination's writing…

Based on a survey of teacher competency testing practices in all the states, the authors provide an analysis of what areas are covered in teacher tests, which tests are used, and how the tests are used in both current and planned state teacher testing programs. (Author/BS)

Testing teachers for recertification to ensure that all certified teachers and administrators can read and write adequately is supported. Insofar as possible, tests must be developed and used in ways that are not demeaning to educational professionals. Recertification testing may recapture public support for education, which has seriously eroded.…

The four position statements included in this occasional paper are the products of a conference involving the New York State Association of Teacher Educators and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education--New York State, on "Who Will Be the Teachers of the Future.""Entry Level Testing in New York State,"…

Representatives from Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas discuss the issues surrounding teacher and student competency and accountability. For each state, they review legislative policies and actions and the programs of the state education department regarding the use of competency and accountability standards. The…

Six recommendations from the 1985 report "A Call for Change in Teacher Education" are analyzed with regard to actual and potential conflicts between goals for minority recruitment and the five other recommendations (testing, integration of liberal arts and teacher training, extended induction-internships, certification standards set by state…

The state of Georgia not only assesses the generic teaching competencies that are necessary for all teachers seeking certification, but also administers 28 separate criterion referenced tests, each for a different content-specialty area. Among the most recent of these tests is the Reading Specialist Test, the development of which involved…

In this report four educators discuss the issues which they see to be most current in the fields of testing, measurement and evaluation. The first section discusses the mastery of basic skills, defined by minimum levels of competence. Factors such as accountability, social policy, instructional implications, and psychometric issues are brought to…

The Texas Examination of Current Administrators and Teachers is a basic literacy test that was administered to 202,000 practicing educators in March 1986. An in-depth case study was undertaken to examine the effects of the test as an instrument of educational reform and policy making. The two-year study involved 10 separate data-collection phases…

This bulletin contains the current specifications from which the questions on the professional education subtest of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination were developed. Information is provided on: (1) competencies and subskills tested by the subtest; (2) generic competencies evaluation strategies; (3) the content base for the professional…

Argues that the Florida Teacher Certification Examination is culturally, linguistically, and philosophically biased against minorities. Suggested alternatives to testing are implementation of knowledge about effective schools, teacher workshops on effective techniques and attitudes for teaching nonachievers, and improved early education. (CMG)

In 1979, Act 187, known now as the Educator Improvement Act, was mandated by the legislature of the State of South Carolina. One tenet of Act 187 was the establishment of an Educator Improvement Task Force to develop an instrument which could effectively measure minimal teaching competencies. To help in the content and design of the instrument,…