August 12th, 2017

Teacher Selection Tool / Polaris

The Fund supported the pilot and validation of the Polaris Assessment Systems Job Fit Inventory for Teachers (JFI-T), an online teacher screening tool. The JFI-T enables Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to better screen for high potential candidates, and it is an essential component of an investment suite designed to meet the Fund III goal of improving the overall quality of CPS teacher hires. A job analysis identified characteristics of successful CPS teachers through teacher interviews, focus groups and a questionnaire distributed to more than 1,100 teachers, leading to the Polaris JFI-T’s development. The assessment has two components: a situational components section that requires candidates to identify responses to certain situations, and a rating-scale section that is largely behavioral and attempts to identify personality characteristics. As part of the online application, applicants for open CPS teacher positions take this assessment.