Assessing Professional Knowledge : Ohio

Delivering Well Prepared Teachers Policy

Goal

The state should use a licensing test to verify that all new teachers meet its professional standards.

Meets goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Assessing Professional Knowledge : Ohio results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/OH-Assessing-Professional-Knowledge--6

Analysis of Ohio's policies

Ohio requires all new teachers to pass a popular pedagogy assessment from the Praxis II series.

Ohio is also accelerating its participation in the Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) consortium by including all of their institutions of higher learning in the pilot program next year, with the expectation that they it will allow or require the use of TPA in licensure as early as 2012. It appears that this will replace the requirement for new teachers to pass the Praxis III performance assessment in the first two years of teaching.

Recommendations for Ohio

Verify that commercially available tests of pedagogy actually align with state standards.
Ohio 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 Ohio is commended for once again 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. Both Ohio and Arkansas have reported pass rates on the Praxis III performance-based assessment 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

Ohio recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.

Research rationale

For evidence of the importance of pedagogy tests in improving student achievement, see C. Clotfelter, H.Ladd and J.Vigdor, "How and Why Do Teacher Credentials Matter for Student Achievement?"  Working Paper 2, Calder Institute (2007).

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)