Opinion
Education Letter to the Editor

Calif. Teacher Assessment Offers No Improvements

October 29, 2007 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

To the Editor:

The Performance Assessment for California Teachers, or PACT, was approved by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing—not by teachers, nor by the college professors who prepare them (“Performance Test for New Calif. Teachers Approved,” Oct. 17, 2007). I and other faculty members in teacher preparation in the California State University system worked to oppose this bureaucratic imposition of an unfunded mandate.

Trial runs of this particular type of teacher-performance assessment lead many to believe that such assessment in its various forms will not actually improve the quality of teachers, nor contribute to closing achievement gaps. It will cost future teachers a great deal of time and money. Your article claims that studies of PACT pilots have shown positive results, but advocates of PACT have not sought evidence from those of us opposed to it.

The one-sided argument presented is that portfolio assessment is an improvement over the current assessment system. It may well be an improvement for elite universities with small teacher-preparation programs, such as Stanford, a leader in the development of PACT. There, academic professors do not usually supervise student-teachers or interns. In such sites, a portfolio assessment may be better than a written checklist from the field.

But for universities with large programs, the cost in time and money is substantial. For those of us at these lowly-brethren institutions, advocates would need to demonstrate that PACT is a more substantive assessment than professors making six to eight evaluative visits per semester to supervise student-teaching, plus the evaluation of host teachers. This has not been demonstrated.

What we have is another bureaucratic solution imposed on teacher education by persons who do not work closely with teachers in the field.

Duane E. Campbell

Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education

California State University-Sacramento

Sacramento, Calif.

A version of this article appeared in the October 31, 2007 edition of Education Week as Calif. Teacher Assessment Offers No Improvements

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Mathematics Webinar
Pave the Path to Excellence in Math
Empower your students' math journey with Sue O'Connell, author of “Math in Practice” and “Navigating Numeracy.”
Content provided by hand2mind
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Recruitment & Retention Webinar
Combatting Teacher Shortages: Strategies for Classroom Balance and Learning Success
Learn from leaders in education as they share insights and strategies to support teachers and students.
Content provided by DreamBox Learning
Classroom Technology K-12 Essentials Forum Reading Instruction and AI: New Strategies for the Big Education Challenges of Our Time
Join the conversation as experts in the field explore these instructional pain points and offer game-changing guidance for K-12 leaders and educators.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: September 20, 2023
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education From Our Research Center What's on the Minds of Educators, in Charts
Politics, gender equity, and technology—how teachers and administrators say these issues are affecting the field.
1 min read
Stylized illustration of a pie chart
Traci Daberko for Education Week
Education Briefly Stated: August 30, 2023
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: August 23, 2023
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read