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A test vendor and an accrediting group are joining together to set a national standard on a widely used teacher-accreditation exam, a move likely to add to the pressure on states as they over-see teacher-preparation programs deemed weak.
The action is one of three this spring by the Educational Testing Service or the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education promoting test-defined teacher quality.
The ETS announced last month that it has expanded its collaboration with NCATE to come up with a single cutoff score on the Princeton, N.J., test-maker's Praxis II test. Twenty-three states currently require that test for teacher licensing, according to a survey conducted by Education Week for Quality Counts 2003.
"At the end of this exercise, we will have a statement by the profession of expectations for what a new teacher should know and be able to do, and that information will be publicly available, and any state that wishes may use it," said Arthur E. Wise, the president of ncate, which represents 34 Snational education groups and accredits some 660 teacher-preparation programs. Its headquarters is in Washington.
As a matter of legal responsibility, each state sets its own minimum passing score on whatever teacher-licensing test it chooses to use, if any. The wide disparity in cutoff scores has bothered some observers, including members of Congress and advocates of higher standards for teacher quality. They complain that the situation undercuts the worth of a federal requirement that states publish the test results of their would-be teachers.
A national benchmark applied to the scores on teacher-licensing tests could make possible more meaningful comparisons between states and among different...