Education and testing standards

Teacher Standard

The 2009-2010 Accountability Progress Reporting System issued by the Department of Education from the state of California contains information necessary to understand the laws and requirements necessary for public educators to meet. The state of California issues adequate yearly progress report (AYP) to not only issued guidance but also to take accountability of what the new standards will be for the future of educators and what things they need to know in order to continue on with their profession.

This document first introduces the key changes that will be implemented throughout the new year and how they differ from the past. This report breaks down California's progress in two different methods by state accountability requirements and by federal accountability requirements. State mandated requirements stem from California's public school accountability act of 1999 and the federal mandated requirements stem from the Elementary and Secondary education act that was passed a federal law.

This document is quite long at 90 pages and is repetitive and often confusing. It does list general answers to requirements for teachers and education systems that need to be followed. These include certain standardized test scores and that need to be met in order for funding from both state and federal sources to be realized within the school. Oftentimes these statements and objectives are clear and also at times they require more information and research. Standards and objectives are clearly listed throughout the document depending on what particular law or regulation needs to be followed, this makes reading easy however the complicated laws and many rules make this report confusing long and not very interesting to read. Unfortunately teaching should not have to be this complicated and there should not be this many rules in order to fit both state and federal regulations.

PART II

The AYP for the state of California is one document that features requirements that teachers need to be aware of in order to successfully understand the requirements from all of the many sources interested in their success. Besides the AYP, the California standards for the teaching profession (CSTP), which provides guidance on teacher attending credentials for their profession, and the English language arts content seems for California public schools K-12 are also interesting documents that when contrasted provide guidance at different levels for the teacher to understand and implement within the classroom.

The AYP is authoritative source that originates from the government and puts these. requirements that educators need to respect in order to successfully deal with society in general. The CSTP is a California state directed initiative that helps provide teachers and understanding and what's the expected them in terms of state requirements. This document does not give specific standards but rather gives suggestions on how to connect with students in various ways. This is a document that focuses on the teachers and what they need to do and how they need to act within the classroom. The CST is 20 pages and is not a difficult or confusing document to understand.

The content guide dealing with English and language arts, is a specific document that deals with a particular subject, English and language arts, and how it applies to each student depending on what grade they are and what level they understand the subject. This document offers strategies and guidelines for teachers to identify where their students are in comparison to the rest of the state. The standardization helps teachers benchmark certain levels of understanding and can provide equal protection and justified grading.

These three documents are similar in the same way in that they deal with public education and they all contain ideas rules and regulations dealing with specific teacher requirements within the classroom. They are different in other ways as well and that they deal with different aspects of what teachers to expect. While undocumented AYP requires teachers to understand the laws of federally and state issued and the others are more classroom specifically deal with the day-to-day operations of the classroom.