BILL NUMBER:S7532

TITLE OF BILL:  An act in relation to candidates for certificates in
the classroom teaching service

PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

This bill will make changes to the current timeline for new
certification requirements for teachers.

SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section 1 of the bill would provide that no teacher would be required
to take the edTPA or achieve satisfactory levels of performance on the
new edTPA portion of the New York State teacher certification
examinations until April 30, 2015.

For candidates who have not yet received an initial certificate for
teaching by April 30, 2014, these candidates would be required to
instead achieve satisfactory performance levels on either the
elementary or secondary Assessment of Teaching Skills-Written (ATS-W)
test, in addition to the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST), the
Educating All Students (EAS) test, and the Content Specialty Test
(CST), by April 30, 2015.

The bill would also provide that any candidate for a teaching
              

certificate that has already achieved a satisfactory level of the new
edTPA exam would be deemed to have met the requirements of the ATS-W
test. The State Education Department would be authorized and required
to take any necessary actions to establish new test dates for the
ATS-W exams.

Section 2 of the bill would-provide that the act take effect
immediately and shall be deemed to have been in full force and effect
on and after April 1, 2014.

JUSTIFICATION:

The edTPA is a complex performance assessment with multiple
components, including requiring videotaping of student teaching in
kindergarten-grade 12 classrooms. It has been argued that teaching
programs have not had enough time to make necessary changes to
programs to effectively prepare future teachers for the new exam.  It
is important to ensure that our students pursuing a career in teaching
are adequately prepared to take new certification exams. It is unfair
to change certification requirements for teacher candidates who
entered teaching programs under a different set of requirements and
are now close to reaching certification. In addition, it could be
argued that there is no research or evidence to support that the edTPA
better identifies quality teachers any better than existing
certification requirements already do.

PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:


None.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

This act shall take effect immediately and shall be deemed to have
been in full force and effect on and after April 1, 2014.