The state Career and Technical Education Testing Center administers the Skill Certificate program. Tests for the Skill Certificate program are designed to be taken at the end of a course.

Each district has test coordinators designated for each school. They assist teachers in how to administer the tests, maintain security, scoring and printing certificates. Teachers who administer the tests must sign an Instructor Agreement statement in order to participate.

List of Skills Certificate Tests

Standards and objectives have been developed for each course in the assessment system. Standards are broad statements by category of knowledge and skills that describe what students should be able to do. Objectives are sub-standards or competencies included within a standard. Test questions on the objective assessment are written to measure the attainment of an objective within a standard.

The standards and objectives for each assessment form the basis of all questions included in each test. Each assessment includes up to 80 items. Each test item is linked to a single standard and objective, which is used for scoring, reporting and program improvement purposes. Particular standards may be weighted more highly through the use of additional questions tied to that standard. The assessment also includes pilot questions that are not counted in the student’s score in order to continually update the test item bank from which the objective questions are drawn.

The performance assessment is a required component of the skill certificate program and is developed for each assessment. In order to receive a certificate, students must achieve an 80% on the written test and achieve a level of moderately to highly skilled on all performance objectives included in the performance. Like the objective assessment, each element within the performance assessment is tied to a standard and objective from the course.

Performance on this portion of the assessment will be completed in class and evaluated by the teacher. These performance assessments may be completed and evaluated at any time during the course. Students may be encouraged to repeat the objectives until they perform at the required moderatly to highly skilled levels.

When a performance objective has been achieved at the minimum 80% level (moderately to highly skilled), it is documented by the teacher. All performance objectives must be completed and evaluated prior to the objective test.

The signed required performance documentation submitted to the state CTE Skill Certificate specialist by the school’s Career and Technical Education skill certificate testing coordinator at the end of the school year.

All paper tests are submitted to the Career and Technical Education Testing Center for scanning and uploaded. All assessement are scored by the online assessment system. If the student passes the objective portion at an 80% level and has passed the performance assessment at an 80% level, a certificate will be generated for that student.

Once tests have been scored, the CTE online assessment system will generate the following:

Teacher Report

Student Certificates