2008/09 Budgetary Challenges

Teaching Performance Assessment
($10 Million)

Teacher quality and assessment of teacher competence are areas of continuing state and national interest. Through standards set by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) and monitored during accreditation, institutions have in the past been required to assess their candidates and determine their readiness to begin teaching prior to recommending them for a teaching credential. Assessment methods have been the purview of institutions, and state standards have not addressed issues of validity and reliability in assessment practices. Information emanating from these activities has generally been useful at the program level, but not reportable in an overall teacher education accountability system that is based on outcomes of candidate preparation.

The Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) requirements in statute and the Assessment Quality Standards adopted by the CCTC in 2002 require each institution to ensure that every one of its teacher candidates has been assessed in a valid, fair, and reliable manner and that each faculty member scoring the TPA has been trained in the calibrated scoring procedures that are part of the approved assessment system. These requirements bring practices that are typically part of standardized testing programs to bear on an assessment system that is required by law to be embedded in programs and administered by faculty. The performance-based assessment approach is unprecedented in California and the nation. In the last two years, faculty members have reported that planning for and piloting these new requirements has led to improvements in candidate assessment and, deriving from this, in preparation programs.

TPA implementation will require the following new campus-based activities:

• Training for faculty in the scoring of the TPA instrument the campus elects to use
• Scoring of candidate TPA, estimated at an average of two hours per candidate
• Administration and oversight of the TPA system
• Creation and ongoing maintenance of data systems that allow for the collection and reporting of candidate performance data
• Procedures and equipment for videotaping of candidate classroom performance
• Submission of implementation plans to the CTC for approval under CTC-adopted Assessment Quality Standards
• Development of procedures and reporting mechanisms that provide candidates with a diagnostic analysis of their teaching strengths and weaknesses, which they can take with them and use in their induction programs

The CSU requests $10 million to implement required teaching performance assessments on the 22 campuses that prepare candidates for teaching credentials and in CalStateTEACH, using procedures that conform to standards that have been adopted by the CCTC. Implementation is required to fulfill the mandates of Chapter 517, Statutes of 2006 (Senate Bill 1209–Scott), which requires that teacher preparation programs in California implement rigorous TPA procedures with all teacher credential candidates beginning in 2008/09. The CSU projects the costs at $500 per candidate to implement the requirement—consisting of $100 per candidate in one-time start-up costs and $400 per candidate in ongoing cost, and projects that 20,000 candidates will require assessment. These figures are based on thorough pilots of different designs for TPAs that have been conducted during the past three years. The funds requested will be used to (1) establish TPA procedures that conform to state-approved standards and (2) implement TPA requirements with all affected candidates beginning fiscal year 2008/09 in conformance with Senate Bill 1209.