Develop Early Childhood Education Performance Assessment

PDG-Renewal / Activity 4a

Providers

In Progress

The Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) is responding to a lack of access to career pathways and college credits identified in the PDG-I Needs Assessment, and in coordination with California’s Master Plan for Early Learning and Care (MPELC). The state will take key steps toward creating credentials, certificates, and content that align professional development through higher education.

PDG-R funds will support the CTC to develop a competency-based performance assessment system for early learning and care (ELC) educators that will strengthen the capacity to offer well-designed, clinically based preparation for the ELC workforce, and serve as a formative assessment tool with the existing workforce and preparatory systems to help guide professional development.

Start Date: 07/01/2020

Activity 4a: Develop Early Childhood Education Performance Assessment—June 2023 update

At its October 2022 meeting, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) approved program standards for institutions of higher education interested in sponsoring a Preschool Through Grade 3 Early Childhood Education (PK-3 ECE) Specialist Instruction Credential preparation program and the Teaching Performance Expectations for candidates seeking to earn this credential.

The regulations address the structure of the credential, including the authorization, credential requirements, and provisions for current teachers to add the authorization. CTC is preparing to submit required documents to the Office of Administrative Law for approval of these regulations. This process can take from several months to one year to be approved. Once the process is completed in 2023, the credential will be available for issuance to individuals who meet the requirements.

Updates on this work are provided in the monthly Early Childhood Education (ECE) News Update sent to subscribers in the field. Current and prior editions of the ECE News Update are available at the link provided.

CTC has been working to develop a teaching performance assessment for the teacher level of the Child Development Permit aligned with the CTC-adopted Teaching Performance Expectations for the Child Development Permit. The Child Development Permit has multiple levels, based primarily on job function within the ECE workforce.

The ECE Formative Teaching Performance Assessment (ECE FTPA) has been developed in collaboration with a content expert design team of practitioners, faculty, and other ECE experts. The tasks of this formative candidate assessment have been piloted with candidates in Child Development Permit preparation programs at community colleges and four-year institutions of higher education.

The assessment, its training materials, candidate materials, and scoring protocols have been revised based on feedback from that pilot. These materials are now being used in a wider field test prior to completion and availability for statewide voluntary implementation in fall 2023.

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