Assessing Professional Knowledge :
Connecticut
Delivering Well Prepared Teachers Policy
Analysis of Connecticut's policies
Connecticut only requires all new elementary teachers to pass a popular content test from the Praxis series that combines both subject-matter knowledge and pedagogy in order to attain licensure.
Recommendations for Connecticut
Require that all new teachers pass a pedagogy test to verify that they meet professional standards.
Connecticut should expand the requirement for a pedagogy test to new secondary teachers.
Verify that commercially available tests of pedagogy actually align with state standards.
Connecticut should ensure that its selected test of professional knowledge measures the knowledge and skills the state expects new teachers to have.
State response to our analysis
Connecticut recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis. The state added that it is considering the adoption of a pedagogy test. It plans to review available assessments to determine which ones align with Connecticut's Common Core of Teaching, the state-adopted teaching standards.
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Connecticut
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Preparation Programs
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Research rationale
For further information regarding the use of performance assessments and the Teacher Performance Assessment Consortium (TPAC) in California and other states see L. Darling-Hammond, "Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness: How Teacher Performance Assessments Can Measure and Improve Teaching" Center for American Progress (2010).
For a perspectives on the issues with teaching dispositions, see W. Damon, "Personality Test: The dispositional dispute in teacher preparation today and what to do about it" in Arresting Insights in Education Vol.2 No. 3 (2005); J. Gershman, "'Disposition' Emerges as Issue at Brooklyn College," New York Sun, May 2005.
For evidence on the low passing scores required by states on pedagogy tests, see the U.S. Department of Education's Secretary's Seventh Annual Report on Teacher Quality (2010). Also see K. Walsh "A Candidate-Centered Model for Teacher Preparation and Licensure" in A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom (Hess, Rotherham and Walsh, eds.) (2004)