WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE CPACE?
Now that the current version of the CPACE had its final administration in February of 2015, many aspiring school leaders are wondering, “Now what?!“
Luckily, the Commission has agreed to continue providing an expedited route (the CPACE) to earning an admin credential for those who want to avoid grad school at all costs (pun intended).
We understand how frustrating it can be to not know what to expect–especially in light of the fact that there was never that much information out there in the first place regarding the CPACE.
Well, we’ve done a lot of research here at Evo Prep so hopefully we can quell your curiosity even just a little bit.
WHAT IS THE NEW CPACE GOING TO BE LIKE?
According to the CTC’s website, the new version of the CPACE will be administered in June. Registration will begin early May.
So what does this entail? The CPACE has received a major makeover to be “robust, in-depth, and focused on the two highest levels of the range of thinking skills for candidates.”
The thinking skills cited here refer to the assessment moving behind basic recall, factual information, and summarizing to more extended thinking skills that require designing, conducting, analyzing, and reporting.
Here is what we know so far:
The previous video portion of the CPACE in which candidates needed to submit a video of themselves showing their communication skills is now gone. HOORAY. No more scrambling to film an awkward 12 minutes of yourself and be forced to watch and reflect upon it. That will, however, be replaced with having to watch 12-15 minutes of someone else teaching and you will be evaluating that lesson. Interesting, right? Read on.
The new CPACE has an obvious emphasis on Instructional Leadership for the new performance assessment component. The performance module provides testers with “a significant amount of background material relating to a situation that would typically be faced by a school administrator (such as, for example, reviewing a teacher’s lesson plan, video of the lesson, reflections by the teacher, student work samples, and a variety of supporting materials).”
IS THIS BETTER?
Now all of this may seem a tad bit overwhelming, but coming from an administrator’s standpoint, this is actually pretty cool AND a more accurate assessment of one’s instructional leadership capacity–more so than filming yourself and praying that the members of your audience are engaged and asking the right questions. For those of you who submitted the video portion of the old CPACE, you know EXACTLY what we’re talking about.
On the job, school leaders actually do what the performance module entails:
- Conduct frequent classroom observations
- Provide feedback to teachers
- Follow-up on teachers’ next steps for accountability
- Evaluate teachers’ effectiveness through lesson plans, student work samples, and teacher reflections
Having these components be part of the administrator credentialing examination makes sense. Every school leader needs to have sound practice in instructional leadership — particularly when it comes to teacher evaluation and coaching.
It seems that the CTC is really moving toward having the CPACE put individuals in situations that administrators would typically face on the job. Does that make the test more challenging? Maybe, but it also makes this test more valid.
OUT WITH THE OLD & IN WITH THE NEW!
Below is a side by side comparison chart of the old CPACE and the new CPACE to give you a clearer idea:
While we cannot say for certain, it appears that the new CPACE will be administered over 2 days — at least it SHOULD because testing for 7.5 hours will make our brains turn to scrambled eggs.
The Content Assessment looks pretty similar to the previous version’s written portion. You still have 70 multiple choice questions and 3 short, written responses. The Case Study that was part of the old CPACE’s written test, is now pushed into the Performance Module alongside the teacher evaluation section.
Now, since this information is still preliminary and taken from the Commission’s agenda notes, there is a chance that things may slightly change, but for now, this is what it appears to be.
What are your thoughts on the new performance modules?