Educator Assessment - GACE

Georgia Assessments for the Certification of Educators® (GACE)

NOTICE ABOUT PAA and edTPA

Program Admission Assessment: Effective July 1, 2022, the Georgia Professional Standards Commission no longer requires the Program Admission Assessment (PAA) for admission to a state-approved educator preparation program or for provisional certification. More information is available here here.

edTPA: Effective July 1, 2020, the Georgia Professional Standards Commission no longer requires edTPA for program completion or state certification. More information is available here.
About GACE
The Georgia Assessments for the Certification of Educators® (GACE) is Georgia’s state-approved educator certification assessment program (see "Speech and Language Pathology" exception below). The purpose of the GACE is to help the Georgia Professional Standards Commission (GaPSC) ensure that candidates have the knowledge and skills needed to perform the job of an educator in Georgia's public schools. These computer-delivered assessments have been developed by the GaPSC and Educational Testing Service (ETS).

All GACE assessments are aligned with the state standards for the P-12 curriculum and with state and national content standards. Each GACE test was developed by Georgia educators from across the state, including the participation of committees of Georgia educators, educator preparation faculty, and other content and assessment specialists, including individuals from school systems, local schools, institutions of higher education (public and private), and other stakeholders. In other words, each GACE was developed by Georgia educators to measure competency on what is taught in Georgia's P-12 classrooms.

The GACE assessments are criterion-referenced, objective-based assessments designed to measure a candidate's knowledge and skills in relation to an established standard rather than in relation to the performance of other candidates. Test questions were reviewed and approved by three committees of Georgia educators and educator preparation faculty, which includes a bias review to ensure all test questions, are bias-free. The passing score for each test is established by the agency Commissioners and is based on the professional judgments and recommendations of Georgia educators.

For information about preparation, registration, test dates and sites, rules of test participation, etc., of the GACE program, access www.gace.ets.org. For information on Georgia-accepted assessments and passing scores, including the Speech and Language Pathology exception, click here.