Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education 7:7-20, 1993 9 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston - Manufactured in the United States of America Assessing Teachers' Functional Professional Knowledge DAVID M. SHANNON Department of Educational Foundations, Leadership, and Technology, Auburn University, 2084 Haley Center, Auburn University, AL 36849-5221 DONALD M. MEDLEY Commonwealth Center for the Education of Teachers, University of Virginia LUREE HAYS Kamehameha Schools In recent years, teacher competency testing has become a more and more popular tool in public efforts to improve education. The principal purpose of competency testing is to protect children in school from incompetent teachers by identifying candidates for certification or licensure to teach who are incompetent before they enter the classroom as teachers. Opinion polls have indicated support for the practice both from the public and from teachers as well (Gallup, 1984, 1986; Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1986); from teachers' professional organizations (Futrell & Robinson, 1986; Shanker, 1986); and from such other groups as the National Commission on Excellence in Education (1988), the Holmes Group (1986), the Council of Chief State School Officers (Rudner, 1987) and the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy (Rudner, 1987). Current teacher assessment methods Paper-and-pencil tests of teacher competence Increasing numbers of state legislatures have responded to these pressures by mandating statewide teacher competency testing programs (Association of Teacher Educators, 1988; Eissenburg & Rudner, 1988; Sandefur, 1985). The number of state legislatures issuing such mandates increased from three in 1977 to 38 in 1987, with eight of the remaining 12 drafting proposals to follow suit. Such programs are usually based on standardized paper-and-pencil tests of knowledge that teachers are believed to need in order to be effective in the class- room. Their primary purpose is to screen out candidates for a teaching certificate