FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Barbara McKenna
831.460.9933;
650.725.8600;
SACRAMENTO — Beginning next summer, all prospective teachers in California will have to pass a state-approved teacher performance assessment in order to receive their preliminary credential. In its October 4th meeting, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) unanimously approved an innovative assessment model that evaluates teacher performance in the classroom, rather than relying only on paper-and-pencil tests.
The newly approved Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) was designed in 2003 by a consortium of 12 institutions, including Stanford University, which is the administrative home of PACT. The consortium has grown to 30 institutions that, together, prepare more than 30 percent of teachers in California (for a complete list of member institutions see below).
The commission's approval gives teacher education programs two assessment options: PACT and the state-developed California Teacher Performance Assessment (CA-TPA). PACT requires student teachers and interns to design and teach a unit of instruction, taking special needs students and English language learners into account; provide daily plans and reflections on student learning; videotape their teaching; and analyze student work to evaluate the learning that occurred and the teaching needed to move students forward in the next unit. The assessment is scored by trained raters in the same subject area as the teacher. Candidates must demonstrate that they can successfully complete this “Teaching Event” in order to be recommended for a license.
Although legislation has been in place since 1998 requiring all California teaching candidates to pass a performance assessment in addition to the basic skills and subject matter tests already required, implementation and state funding for the assessment have been delayed until July 2008. In the interim, a number of teacher education programs, representing the full spectrum of University of California, California State University, and private teacher education programs, have been working together to develop and pilot PACT.
"As chair of the commission, I was thrilled to join my fellow commissioners in unanimously supporting PACT's implementation," said P. David Pearson who is also Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. "This and the CA-TPA assessment put California in a position of national leadership in teacher assessment, creating a clear and consistent pathway for novice teachers to follow in their quest for real teacher quality — namely, the knowledge and skills they need to bring high quality instruction to all students."
"When the state standards were developed one of the goals was to establish very exacting high-quality criterion for program accreditation and to assure consistency and rigor in how programs assess their candidates," said Beverly Young, ex-officio member of the commission and Assistant Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs for the California State University system. "What's valuable about PACT is that it uses the same candidate assessment criterion, rigor, and standardization as the CA-TPA but its implementation reflects the act of teaching and provides a deep and rigorous assessment of candidates' abilities."
"The approval of the PACT assessment is a far-sighted decision by the CCTC to use an authentic standard in deciding who is ready to teach," said Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University and one of the founders of the PACT consortium. "PACT is one of the first assessments nationally to look at whether candidates can actually successfully teach as a basis for granting a license. It moves teacher certification closer to a determination of teacher effectiveness and gives valuable information to teacher education programs about how well-prepared their candidates are so that they can continually improve. This break-through is good news not just for teachers, but for the students these new entrants will ultimately teach."
“The commission has established a major new marker in the process for teacher licensing," said Sharon Robinson, President and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. "The colleges that designed PACT are to be commended for creating a tool to serve the public by distinguishing those who have all the skills required to support today’s learners. We look forward to building on their accomplishment by bringing this performance assessment to the broader community of teacher educators and others for whom it presents a model.”
"This is a groundbreaking state policy — California is leading the nation in establishing rigorous standards for licensing prospective teachers," said Raymond Pecheone, Director of the PACT and Co-Executive Director of the School Redesign Network at Stanford University. "The PACT assessment not only provides a rigorous evaluation of new teachers, it establishes a foundation in California for a standards-based pathway to guide prospective teachers throughout their academic careers, from the time they decide to become teachers, through their induction into the profession as beginning teachers, culminating with meeting National Board standards for teacher excellence.”
PACT aims to strengthen beginning teaching through formal performance assessment accompanied by training for teacher education faculty to ensure that programs have common understandings about important teaching competencies. Through ongoing evaluation of each teaching candidate, programs acquire systematic data about candidate performance which is used for program improvement. The PACT Teaching Event is discipline-specific and covers 11 separate credentialing areas. It is used to recommend student teachers for California's preliminary Multiple and Single Subject Teaching Credential, as well as to inform the development of a professional growth plan to be used in teacher induction.
#####
PACT Consortium members
(*indicates founding member)
University of California
*UC Berkeley
*UC Davis
*UC Irvine
*UC Los Angeles
*UC Riverside
*UC San Diego
*UC Santa Barbara
*UC Santa Cruz
California State University
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
CSU Chico
CSU Channel Islands
CSU Dominguez Hills
CSU Monterey Bay
CSU Northridge
Humboldt State
Sacramento State
*San Diego State
San Francisco State
*San Jose State
Sonoma State
Private/Independent
Holy Names University
*Mills College
Notre Dame de Namur University
Pepperdine University
*Stanford University
St. Mary’s College of California
University of the Pacific
University of San Diego
USC
District Intern Program
San Diego City Schools Intern Program
