Assessing Professional Knowledge : North
Carolina

Analysis of North Carolina's policies

North Carolina requires most secondary teachers to pass a popular pedagogy test from the Praxis series in order to attain licensure. The state 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.

North Carolina is also part of the Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) Consortium and began a pilot program in Spring 2011.

Recommendations for North Carolina

Require that all new teachers pass a pedagogy test.
North Carolina should verify that all new teachers meet professional standards through a test of professional standards for all elementary teachers, in addition to secondary teachers.

Verify that commercially available tests of pedagogy actually align with state standards.
North Carolina should ensure that its selected test of professional knowledge measures the knowledge and skills the state expects new teachers to have.

Ensure that performance assessments provide a meaningful measure of new teachers' knowledge and skills.
While North Carolina is commended for considering the use of a performance-based assessment, the state should proceed with caution until additional data are available on the Teacher Performance Assessment. Additional research is needed to determine how the TPA compares to other teacher tests as well as whether the test's scores are predictive of student achievement. The track record on similar assessments is mixed at best. The two states that currently require the Praxis III performance-based assessment report pass rates of about 99 percent. Given that it takes significant resources to administer a performance-based assessment, a test that nearly every teacher passes is of questionable value.

State response to our analysis

North Carolina recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.