Assessment System Overview

The twelve Florida Educator Accomplished Practices comprise the knowledge, skills and abilities needed by all teachers to effectively support high student achievement. Research-based, these essential educator practices include:

Assessment
Communication
Continuous improvement
Critical thinking
Diversity
Ethics
Human Development & Learning
Knowledge of Subject Matter
Learning Environments
Planning
Role of the Teacher
Technology

Because every effective teacher must be able to integrate and apply all of the skills involved in these areas of professional practice, competent demonstration of each of the twelve Educator Accomplished Practices is required to qualify for a Florida Professional Certificate. Prospective teachers enrolled in any of Florida's approved teacher preparation programs must demonstrate their competence in each of the Educator Accomplished Practices in order to graduate. Likewise, career-changers hired for their subject content expertise must do the same to satisfactorily complete Florida's Alternative Certification Program. The Assessment System that has been developed for Florida's Alternative Certification Program ensures that each teacher demonstrates the intent, the depth, and the breadth of each of the twelve Educator Accomplished Practices.

The Assessment System is aligned not only with Florida's standards for teachers, but also with national standards for beginning teachers identified by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC). A core of critical skills has been distilled from the twelve sets of sample key indicators of the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices. Forty-two assessment tasks have been developed for demonstration of the critical skills. The program begins with a self-survey pre-assessment of the critical skills. If the newly hired teacher feels confident that he or she is well versed in any or all of the critical skills, then mastery can readily be demonstrated by successful completion of the corresponding assessment tasks.

Each assessment task includes the following features:

Task Description: This is a brief summary of what the task is all about, including the product that is to be submitted for evaluation or information about the observation process for performance assessments.
Standards Alignment: Each of the Accomplished Practices has a set of indicators. To make sure that the assessment system covers the intent, depth, and breadth of the Practice, each assessment task has been correlated to the indicators for that Practice. Because the national standards from INTASC also help to ensure an even better understanding of the intent of the Practices, correlations with those standards are also provided.
Directions: Detailed instructions establish clear expectations for each assessment product or performance.
Rubric: For each task there is a rubric that provides all the criteria that are to be applied by the On-Line Tutor or other member of the Support Team. The rubrics are also available to the teachers who participate in Florida's Alternative Certification Program (ACP).
Decision: The decisions for each task will be the same, but the "cut scores" are different, depending on how many criteria are applied in each task.
Improvements Needed: The Support Team member who applies the rubric will provide feedback to the ACP teacher on how to improve the teacher's work. If any aspect of the assessment is "unacceptable," the ACP teacher must address the suggested improvements.
Comments: The On-Line Tutor or other Support Team member can include any other specific comments that may be helpful to the progress of the ACP teacher.

The Assessment System culminates with four levels of decisions. Each successive decision builds upon the next to reach the final determination of whether or not the teacher has successfully demonstrated competence in each of the twelve Educator Accomplished Practices. The collection of assessment data for any practice that is demonstrated at the minimally acceptable level leads logically into goals for the teacher's individual plan for continued support and professional growth. Valid and reliable, the Assessment System for Florida's Alternative Certification Program provides the educationally sound, standards-based method of ensuring strong support for student achievement through competent teacher performance.