The Mississippi Teacher Assessment Instruments (MTAI) are key elements in a process for both ensuring teacher competency and accrediting teacher education programs. Institutions providing teacher education must pass both a process review and a performance review. To pass the process review, institutions must screen students according to set standards, must obtain accreditation from specified professional groups, must require students to complete certain minimum levels of training including student teaching, and must make sure that all those supervising student teachers are properly certified as teacher evaluators. The performance review is a test of the quality of the institution's graduates, a significant percentage of whom must achieve acceptable scores on designated tests upon completion of their educations and must advance from provisional to standard certification after one year. The MTAI are used to measure the teaching skills of beginning teachers and to assess the skills attained by teachers seeking standard certification, and thus perform a significant role in the accreditation process. This report includes an appendix listing the 16 competency areas measured with the MTAI. (PGD)