Discusses decision making and politics in teacher education. In Papua New Guinea, poor command of the English language led to implementation of an intensive, controversial program in teacher education colleges. The article presents comments on teacher education, language, and competency testing in England, Wales, Brazil, Canada, and the United…

In 1979, Act 187, known now as the Educator Improvement Act, was mandated by the legislature of the State of South Carolina. One tenet of Act 187 was the establishment of an Educator Improvement Task Force to develop an instrument which could effectively measure minimal teaching competencies. To help in the content and design of the instrument,…

Because historically black institutions have provided the major share of non-white teachers to the nation's schools, this monograph was prepared to illuminate some of the proactive initiatives which have taken place in four of these black colleges' teacher education programs: (1) Bethune-Cookman College in Florida; (2) Norfolk State University in…

Teacher competency testing is not new, but since the mid-1970s the number of states requiring new teachers to be tested has grown rapidly. States differ in their definition of competence, in the methods they use to assess competence, and in the treatment of teachers who do not meet competency requirements. This monograph describes a national…

Survey responses from 517 member institutions of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education are reported. The first section depicts the nature of the institutions (public land grant, public non-land grant, independent liberal arts, church-related liberal arts, private university, and predominantly black), and the patterns of…

This report presents the results of a survey of Louisiana and North Carolina college students and education officials to ascertain their perceptions regarding the use of minimum competency testing programs and to determine the effects of such programs on black students. Questionnaire and interview data were collected between September 1985 and…

This paper describes the meeting of the Reading and Writing Advisory Committee of the New Jersey Basic Skills Council with selected high school English teachers and administrators. This panel established cut scores for statewide interpretation of the New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Test (NJCBSPT). The NJCBSPT is administered to all…

The National Teacher Examinations (NTE) Core Battery and Specialty Area tests were assessed to determine (1) test validity and (2) minimum performance standards for use in the state of Tennessee. The NTE was reviewed by 316 teacher education personnel, who focused on its relevance to teacher education programs. A group of 288 local school district…

The pattern toward an increase in the number of states using some form of competency testing prior to the certification of educators is substantiated in this paper. Competency testing programs are implemented at three distinct levels: (1) before entrance into a teacher education program near the end of the sophomore year in college; (2) at the end…

Participants in this conference of educators, convened to consider methods of evaluating teacher education students, focused upon the relationship between candidate quality and teacher effectiveness. Questions under consideration included: (1) pre-admission field experiences students should demonstrate; (2) optimum scores on aptitude and…

Designed to provide a context for English teachers' deliberations on what they should be teaching, this paper provides excerpts from 21 news items pertaining to significant educational and social events and trends. The news items deal with a wide range of topics, including the back-to-the-basics movement; the trend toward state-mandated programs…

Examines the nature of competency testing reforms through a multisite investigation of local school districts and states. Argues that competency tests and standards function more as symbolic and political gestures than as instrumental reforms. (FMW)

This report describes the evaluation of the Texas Academic Skills Program (TASP) which provides assessment and academic support for students entering Texas public institutions of higher education. The report includes a trend analysis of year-end TASP Test results and a cohort analysis of academic performance for 431,737 students tested for the…

Minimum competency cut-off scores on a statistics exam were estimated under four conditions: the Angoff judging method with item data (n=20), and without data available (n=19); and the Modified Angoff method with (n=19), and without (n=19) item data available to judges. The Angoff method required free response percentage estimates (0-100) percent,…

The Nevada Department of Education implemented a standard setting study of the Pre-Professional Skills Tests. The tests constitute a secure test battery developed by the Educational Testing Service to assess basic proficiency in reading, writing, and mathematics via three multiple-choice tests and a written essay test. The Nevada study, in the…