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ua non of competency-based certification" (53:30). The Committee strongly urged the need for development of measures of teacher performance in the classroom.
The State of Florida has taken significant steps to initiate a program of competency-based education. Activities to encourage movement toward this goal include:
1. Development of broad teacher education guidelines which can be used in designing preservice
and inservice programs for state approval and
which provide alternatives to the course-bycourse certification regulations, and
2. A Plan coordinated at the state level for designing and disseminating individualized teacher
education modules which employ a performancebased approach to training personnel in specific
skills or knowledge identified by professional educators and which can be adapted to ongoing
preservice and inservice programs. (20)
Presently the state is concerned with research that is designed to show the relationship between teaching competencies and pupil achievement.
Especially important for teacher certification is the project for developing assessment and training techniques for middle school teachers. No specific certification requirements are yet in effect in the state of Florida. However, the state department of education has determined that it is moving toward issuing middle school certificates based on competencies (60). Therefore, modules that have