Teachers Certification Assessments and Teacher Preparation Programs - Essay Sample

Introduction

For the individuals who want to become teachers, the assessment and certification process is a critical part of their career. The preparation programs are meant to make the teachers qualified to offer quality education. Apart from finishing the training, teachers need to be assessed for their suitability before they are certified to work in the schools. In the United States, education is viewed as a local or state issue and states can set different assessment and preparation programs. However, the assessment is similar in many aspects. The general understanding is that teachers who are well-prepared affect the quality of education that is taught in a school (Pecheone & Whittaker, 2016). The National Council on Teacher Quality is a think tank body that was started in the year 2000 and is based in Washington D.C. Its main role is to guide the evaluations of the teachers. The council ensures there is a tougher evaluation for the classroom teachers and in 2013, the council gave a review report that showed that most of the teacher education programs were inadequate (Kumashiro, 2015). A lot of research has been done in this area but there is still many deficits and research gaps. The teacher preparation and assessment programs have failed to achieve their goals.

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The teacher preparation programs are useful in making a teacher resourceful in class and outside the formal teaching programs. In the programs, scientific research in psychology and behavioral science should be used to determine the best way to train the teachers. The desire to use the best preparation programs is to ensure that the ethical and professional expectations of the teachers are met and that the existing teaching workforce is reliable. Program improvement and quality control should be some of the training sessions in these programs (Imig, Wiseman, Wiseman & Imig, 2016). The analysis of the existing secondary data on this topic helps to get a view of the current state of the assessment and preparation programs and the required improvements. It also helps to identify the effectiveness of the existing efforts to improve education delivery and to promote better teaching in the future. In most states, the evaluation of the preparation program is based on three steps; the state departments set the standards for approval of the programs, accreditation by a body like National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and lastly the certification of the programs. The value-added evaluation of the teachers is essential to ensure teachers are fully qualified (Zeichner, 2017). The existing data shows that most of the programs do not meet this target and they produce teachers that are not fully equipped.

The evaluation of the teacher preparation programs is dynamic and changes with time to suit the changing needs of the education sector. Currently, the assessment programs involve the stakeholders and are oriented towards quality and consistency. Focus has also shifted from analyzing the teachers to analyzing the contents taught in the preparation programs. In a state like North Carolina, the teacher value-added assessment and the teacher evaluation ratings are used to assess the success of the preparation programs. However, the assessment does not give a comprehensive image of the state of the programs. The United States does not have a universal certification assessment and preparation programs for teachers in the entire nation (Marchant, David, Rodgers & German, 2015). The variations from state to state affects the education quality in the long run. In conclusion, the certification assessment and preparation programs have failed to achieve the intended goals in education.

References

Imig, D., Wiseman, D. L., Wiseman, A., & Imig, S. R. (2016). What Is High-Quality Teacher Education?. In Quality and Change in Teacher Education (pp. 77-94). Springer, Cham.

Kumashiro, K. K. (2015). Review of proposed 2015 federal teacher preparation regulations. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved January 10, 2015.

Marchant, G. J., David, K. A., Rodgers, D., & German, R. L. (2015). State teacher evaluation and teacher education. The Teacher Educator, 50(2), 89-108.

Pecheone, R. L., & Whittaker, A. (2016). Well-prepared teachers inspire student learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(7), 8-13.

Zeichner, K. M. (2017). The Struggle for the Soul of Teaching and Teacher Education in the US. The Struggle for the Soul of Teacher Education (pp. 31-51). Routledge.