Regardless of the system used, we believed that such a combination of assessment, feedback, and support would yield similar benefits. Performance Assessment of Teaching Praxis III was designed as a nationally validated system for licensing beginning teachers. The development of these assessments involved literally thousands of educators from around the country and took seven years. Taken as a whole, the criteria and the program for training assessors enable state officials to determine which provisionally licensed teachers warrant a continuing license. Currently, six states use the system, for licensing, preservice assessment, or beginning teacher support.
Teaching is complex and difficult to evaluate.
Moreover, assessment for licensure is, by definition, a high-stakes issue. It must be fair, highly accurate, and reliable. Therefore, we developed both the teaching criteria and the assessor training program with extreme care. A critical element was the establishment of teaching standards. Through interviews, observations, and written documents, trained assessors gather evidence on all 19 criteria and rate them according to a behaviorally anchored scale.