The Texas Examinations of Educator Standards (TExES)

The State of Texas wants to insure that beginning teachers have enough knowledge so students learn what they are expected to learn. Accordingly, Texas requires:

1. a content exam to test your knowledge of the subject(s) you want to teach, and
2. the Pedagogy and Professional Responsibility (PPR) exam to test your knowledge of how to teach.

These tests measure your knowledge based on established standards instead of compared to other candidates' performance. All the tests contain multiple choice questions. Some tests also use open-ended written questions, audio (music) or visual (art) samples, or spoken recordings (foreign languages).

CONTENT EXAM

To help you prepare for the content exam, TMATE offers:

1. a spring mini-mester Foundations of Elementary and Middle School Curriculum mini-course to help you fill in your content knowledge of English language arts, reading, math, social studies, fine arts, health, and physical education and
2. a two-day content test preparation seminar that includes a pre-test with feedback to help you identify any areas of weakness in your subject knowledge.

What happens if you don't pass the content test? You must pass the content test to be certified. If you do not pass it, you must retake it on the next available date and continue to retake it until you do pass. If you do not pass the content exam in the spring, you are not automatically eliminated from TMATE. However, failure is likely to make finding an internship job difficult or impossible.

PEDAGOGY (PPR) EXAM

To help you learn how to teach, TMATE offers classroom-based, graduate-level course work taught by Tarleton faculty. You must pass this exam to receive your standard teacher certification and continue teaching. Interns usually take the PPR exam for their grade level and/or subject area during the fall semester of their internship year.