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Most experts in the testing community have presumed that the $350 million promised by the U.S. Department of Education to support common assessments would promote those that made greater use of open-ended items capable of measuring higher-order critical-thinking skills. But as measurement experts consider the multitude of possibilities for an assessment system based more heavily on such questions, they also are beginning to reflect on practical obstacles to putting such a system into place. The issues on the table include the added expense of those items, as well as questions about who should be charged with the task of scoring them, and whether they will prove reliable enough for high-stakes decisions. Also being confronted are matters of governance--the quandary of which entities would actually "own" any new assessments created in common by states and whether working in state consortia would generate savings. In this article, the author discusses the practical challenges connected with open-ended test items.

In Michigan, 98 percent of teachers were rated effective or better under new teacher-evaluation systems recently put in place. In Florida, 97 percent of teachers were deemed effective or better. Principals in Tennessee judged 98 percent of teachers to be "at expectations" or better last school year, while evaluators in Georgia gave good reviews to 94 percent of teachers taking part in a pilot evaluation program. The data are also raising new questions about the observation components of the systems, which tended to produce the highest scores. Dozens of states have taken steps in recent years to overhaul their teacher-evaluation systems, often in response to federal incentives. Such changes have also been promoted by an influential lineup of organizations that calls for greater accountability in the teaching profession. The states hope to use the systems to strengthen teaching practices and dismiss poorly performing teachers.

Slowly but surely, a growing number of states are eyeing policies to select academically stronger individuals for their teaching programs as one avenue to improve the quality of new teachers. Underneath the attention such plans are attracting, though, run deep-seated fears about their potential consequences--particularly whether they will result in a K-12 workforce with fewer black and Latino teachers. On nearly all the measures states are considering, from GPAs to licensure-test scores, minority candidates tend to have weaker scores than their white counterparts. The state action comes against the backdrop of a profession whose membership is already far less diverse than the students it serves. For state officials, the quandary poses a difficult and politically sensitive set of choices.

The National Education Association, on behalf of three affiliates of its Florida chapter and seven teachers, last week filed suit against the Florida education department. They contend that some teachers are being judged against students or subjects they don't teach, in violation of their constitutional rights. The groups seek a federal court injunction against a Florida law that outlines teacher-evaluation procedures, and against three districts' specific implementation policies. If granted, it would essentially throw out evaluation results from the 2011-12 school year, and for future years until a new system could be devised. The 2011 Florida law requires all teachers to be judged in part on the progress of their students. The growth formula was developed for teachers of those subjects for which the state administers standardized tests: grades 4-8 in math and 4-10 in reading. But because only a fraction of teachers are teaching those subjects, the suit contends, districts, with state approval, essentially fudged the formula for other teachers. As a result, the unions allege that the seven teachers were evaluated based on students they don't teach, or in subjects they don't teach.

Real-time classroom simulations like TeachME, a University of Central Florida project, offer promise for a host of teacher-training applications. Through them, candidates could learn to work with different groups of students, or practice a discrete skill such as classroom management. Most of all, such simulations give teachers in training the ability to experiment--and make mistakes--without the worry of doing harm to an actual child's learning. The Florida project is among the most sophisticated experiments with classroom simulations to date, but other projects offer similar benefits. The computer program simSchool, which mimics a classroom setting, can be populated with up to 18 students with different features and emotional characteristics--all of whom will respond differently to stimulus from a teacher-candidate in charge of the virtual classroom. Though not yet widespread in teacher education, the idea of classroom simulations could receive more attention in coming years, especially with the student-teaching aspect of teacher preparation now receiving scrutiny. Groups such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) are pushing for teacher education programs to step up the variety, length, and quality of their field-based experiences. Both TeachME and simSchool are the product of unusual partnerships linking teacher-educators, researchers, and experts in simulations or immersive media. Though widely used to train professionals in medicine, nursing, and aviation, simulations are uncommon in the preparation of teachers. Many aspiring educators get about 10 to 14 weeks of student-teaching in local schools. The idea behind the simulations is not to replace traditional face-to-face student-teaching, but to give teacher-candidates the ability to experience specific skill-building lessons.

A handful of districts, some with the approval of their local teachers' unions, are experimenting with alternatives to the fundamental components that govern teachers' base-pay raises. Ranging from a long-standing plan in Eagle County, Colorado, to a contract ratified earlier this year by teachers in the Pittsburgh district, the systems tie raises more closely to classroom evaluations, rather than granting automatic increases for each year of service or the completion of an advanced degree. The moves have generated some strife as well. Eagle County officials overhauled their plan recently, and teachers in the 82,000-student Baltimore school system last month rejected a tentative contract that would have codified the changes to their pay system. This month, the city's teaching corps will weigh whether to accept a revised version. While it is probably too soon to determine whether such experimentation is indicative of a trend, other districts, such as Hillsborough County, Florida, have devised plans to move in a similar direction. And both publicly and privately financed grants, such as those from the Teacher Incentive Fund, the Race to the Top initiative, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching are prodding district action. Some scholars of teacher compensation welcome the experimentation as a chance to try out various alternatives for structuring pay in ways that better suit district needs. The goals of the new compensation plans are twofold: (1) to better align those dollars with goals for student achievement; and (2) to provide help for teachers to achieve the goals.

This article reports on how states strive to overhaul their teacher tenure policies. Over the past year, a handful of states have begun to overhaul their tenure-granting processes by increasing the number of years it takes teachers to win due process rights, and by trying to improve the evaluations that are supposed to guide determinations of whether a teacher qualifies for the benchmark. The recent efforts differ in several ways from prior waves of reform. With the lone exception of Florida, the states seek to change the tenure-granting process, rather than abolish it. The revisions are also being coupled with movements to tie tenure to student academic achievement, reflecting an increased emphasis in national policy circles on the importance of gauging teachers' impact on student learning. The mechanisms through which the states are approaching changes to their tenure policies differ. While Ohio has delayed the time it takes to earn the right to due process, Delaware will tie it to student achievement, and Florida is poised to abolish it.

Teachers' unions in at least two states are threatening to withhold endorsements of their states' Race to the Top applications, which could jeopardize the states' chances of winning the coveted federal dollars. In a letter printed as an advertisement in the Tallahassee Democrat, Florida Education Association President Andy J. Ford discouraged local union affiliates from signing an agreement to implement a state plan that, among other provisions, would require districts to base teacher evaluations and compensation bonuses heavily on student test scores. The president of Education Minnesota, Thomas A. Dooher, said he will also advise local affiliates not to sign off on the state application unless officials there agree to changes, including dropping a requirement that participating districts implement a pay program that has been voluntary for districts. The Race to the Top program, part of the economic-stimulus legislation passed last year, has been problematic for the national teachers' unions because of its heavy emphasis on using student test scores to measure teacher effectiveness. Now the action has moved to the state and local levels, as states prepare applications for the Jan. 19 deadline for the first round of funding. The $4 billion program is forcing states to engage in a delicate balancing act of aggressively pursuing the money while keeping support from state and local union affiliates. The Race to the Top initiative requires states to take action around four broad "assurances" in the stimulus legislation, including ensuring effective teachers in all classrooms. The largest percentage of points--138 out of 500--will be awarded to states that overhaul their teacher-quality systems, in part by evaluating teachers annually and tying the results to how teachers are compensated, granted tenure, and promoted. Under Minnesota's proposed application, districts participating in the Race to the Top would adopt the Q Comp program, a school-reform approach that includes professional development, annual teacher evaluations, a career-ladder initiative, and an alternative salary schedule based partly on student performance. The voluntary program allows local districts to bargain what percent of the pay component is based on measures of student growth.