West Virginia pilot expands licensure flexibility with Praxis Bridge and Praxis Steps

The House education committee heard from ETS on December 14 about two licensure innovations now available to West Virginia teacher candidates.

Dr. Monica Beam, head of educational partnerships at ETS, and Lisa Klone Durham, ETS director of educational partnerships, described Praxis Bridge — a pathway that lets candidates who score within one standard error of the cut score complete a targeted professional-development module instead of retaking the entire assessment — and Praxis Steps, which allows candidates to take and bank smaller subtests over time rather than a single multi-hour exam.

Why it matters: ETS said the programs lower barriers for candidates who narrowly miss passing while preserving overall standards. "This is about meeting candidates where they are," Dr. Beam said. Lisa Klone Durham added that the programs are intended to reduce financial and logistical hurdles so districts can retain teachers who otherwise might be lost to the system.

What ETS presented: Durham said West Virginia was one of three pilot states that began a November 2024 pilot and that ETS implemented Praxis Bridge nationally in February 2025. ETS applied the policy retroactively for three years: the presentation showed that, in elementary education, 173 West Virginia candidates qualified for Bridge, 66 registered for the module and 54 completed it. Durham cautioned those totals likely undercounted eligible candidates because contact information may be outdated and some recipients may have ignored outreach.

ETS explained that Bridge is available for content and basic-skills (core) assessments but not for pedagogy assessments; West Virginia elected to keep pedagogy assessments outside of Bridge "because they felt that the pedagogy was very important," Durham said. ETS emphasized that Steps still requires an overall pass and does not lower standards; it simply permits candidates to bank passing subtests (for example, algebraic thinking separately from numbers and operations) and combine them to meet the full content requirement.

Committee questions: Delegate Statler asked how long subtests take; Durham said individual subtests run roughly 1.5 to 2 hours. Senators pressed ETS on pass-rate trends and on who takes which tests; ETS explained the difference between core/basic skills (often used for admission to educator-preparation programs) and subsequent content and pedagogy exams. Durham said ETS provides category-level data to educator-preparation programs and to the Department of Education via an encrypted data transfer and offered to work with the state to parse which candidates are traditional pre-service students, alternative-route candidates or out-of-state transfers.

What's next: Committee members asked ETS to provide deeper, state-specific analyses in coordination with the West Virginia Department of Education; the chair said staff would send follow-up requests. ETS representatives left handouts and contact information for further questions.

Provenance: Topic introduced at SEG 076 and closed at SEG 861.