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TeacherMatch is an organization that was founded by four former K-12 teachers and aims to improve the teacher hiring process by making it less subjective and more data-driven. They have developed the "Educator's Professional Inventory" (EPI) assessment which helps employers find the future hires that will offer the most potential for student improvement. Let's take a deeper look!
The EPI from TeacherMatch is based on the research into teacher effectiveness from the last 40 years. When creating this assessment they examined decades of research to try and find the specific aspects of teacher effectiveness that contribute to student growth. I'll let this video take over for a moment to better explain...
So, at the simplest level, the EPI is an assessment that teachers can take for districts that are enrolled in the program which will offer them an objective analysis of their skills that relate to teacher effectiveness. These assessment results can then be compared with other future hires to provide a data-driven report for comparison.
That being said, the goal is not to provide teachers with yet another test to worry about, it only takes about 90 minutes and it's not something you need to study for. Instead, it's to help remove subjectivity from the K-12 hiring process, so that those involved in the hiring process can have a more unbiased way to compare candidates.
Factors that Predict High-Performing Teachers
TeacherMatch's system is currently being used by over 50 districts throughout the state and has met with a great deal of success. And what's even nicer is that the EPI can be an adaptive system, based on a district's need. For example, if a district is finding that teachers who score a certain way on the EPI have been more effective in the classroom than others, then TeacherMatch can adjust the reporting of the EPI to reflect that.
On top of offering teachers a score in the four main areas of the assessment (Teaching Skills, Qualifications, Cognitive Ability, and Attitudinal Factors), the EPI also provides individualized suggestions for professional development.
As any K-12 teacher knows, having to sit through PD that is not helpful for your grade or subject area can be an enormous waste of time. By providing specific skills for teachers to focus on in PD, the EPI can help teachers easily create individualized professional development plans that are specifically aligned to their needs.
Some Suggestions from My Sample EPI
If you're interested in finding out more about how TeacherMatch created this EPI, how they measure "effectiveness," the other services they offer, and the research and data behind this program, this video goes much more into depth on all that:
But overall, the EPI is designed to help districts better compare teacher candidates and to remove biases and subjectivity from the hiring process. It's meant to be an indicator of teacher effectiveness in the classroom, and from my personal experience with the tool, I definitely believe it is a well-constructed, thoroughly-researched piece of assessment. If you're a teacher who is taking the EPI, hopefully this provides a little more information about it, and if you're a district considering using TeacherMatch's services, you can find out more here.