Teacher educators continue to speak out against edPTA. this is an assessment of teacher performance that will be administered by Pearson.
Here is a critique by Julie Gorlewski, a teacher educator at SUNY, New Paltz, New York.
The edTPA is a standardized assessment of teaching that is being required in many states, including New York State as of May 2014, for teacher certification. The edTPA is being marketed as a way to “professionalize” the field of education, a contention that is deeply insulting to those of us who have dedicated our lives to the art and craft of teaching. The edTPA will be administered during student teaching. It is a high-stakes assessment because certification depends on its successful completion. This assessment has raised concerns of teachers and teacher educators for several reasons:
Although its initial versions were developed at Stanford, the instrument is being sold and administered by Pearson, Inc. It is expected to cost candidates around $300.
Assessments will not be scored by teacher educators; they will be scored by temporary workers paid about $75 per exam. These scorers are not allowed to know the teacher candidates, nor are they to be affiliated with the community in which student teaching occurs. These conditions negate the importance of relationships in the development of teaching, preferring the pretense of objectivity over trust, authenticity, and cultural responsiveness.
The assessment requires that candidates submit videos of themselves in K-12 teaching situations. This means that Pearson will own videos of young people who have student teachers in their classrooms. This is being implemented without widespread knowledge or consent of parents in states where edTPA is being mandated.
Will the edTPA affect the experience of learning to teach? You bet it will. A recent conversation I had with a student in our teacher education program highlights the potential effects of this assessment. Joel, who is enrolled in my undergraduate Introduction to Curriculum and Assessment course approached me after class and asked if I had time to talk. He was excited and concerned. He was excited because the teacher he had been assigned to for Fieldwork I, where students spend 35 hours observing and participating in secondary settings, had invited him to student teach with her. Because he had tremendous respect and admiration for this teacher, Joel was thrilled by the opportunity. But he was also worried, so worried that he hesitated to accept the offer.
Joel was apprehensive about completing the edTPA in this school. It is an urban environment in a community noted for poverty and gang activity. He had forged relationships with the young people in the school, as well as several faculty members there, but the judgment of an objective scorer who might not understand if the classroom was not filled with compliant, well-behaved learners had made my student hesitate. My heart sank.
I encouraged Joel to follow his heart and reassured him that the edTPA scorers would appreciate the diverse experiences of teacher candidates in a range of settings. I reassured Joel because I have faith in him, in his mentor teacher, and in the relationships they will form with their students. I have no such faith in Pearson, and I fear the consequences of its corporate incursions into education. But I will not allow fear to triumph over optimism, nor will I allow anonymity to erase relationships. The possibilities of education are intensely human and cannot be reduced to a number.
Julie A. Gorlewski, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Secondary Education
Incoming Co-Editor of English Journal
SUNY New Paltz
800 Hawk Drive
Old Main 321B
New Paltz, NY 12561
845-257-2856
845-257-2854 Fax
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I want to add an additional caution that even if the tape were evaluated by current classroom teachers it is not a guarantee that they will grasp the full context in which it was made. All National Board materials are evaluated by current teachers, they are given a certain amount of training, they have much better understanding of the nature of teaching, but still sometimes what the National Board candidate understands about the context might not necessarily come through. At least in the National Board context the candidate is offering reflections – the evaluation is less concerned with what actually happens on the tape for example than it is on the candidate’s ability to reflect upon and learn from what happened. There is none of that in the Pearson-run process.
I was when in the classroom a very much out of the box teacher. What I did worked for me, in large part because of how I built relationships with my students, and because I was well-rooted in my school which trusted me and supported me. That is something much more difficult to do for a student teacher, and we should be remembering that s/he is a student teacher. A one-time video without reflection is not a good way to evaluate. It would be far better to have two videos, one early in the student teaching process, and one later, with reflections on both, so that the student teacher could be demonstrating the ability to reflect and adjust, something that is important even for very experienced teachers if they are not going to become stale.
And the idea of non-educators doing the evaluation is ridiculous. Here I want to think like Anthony Mullen in this famous blog post from when he was National Teacher of the Year Perhaps you can hire me to evaluate tapes of surgery or emergency room treatment? After all, I will cost less than having a medical professional do the same analysis, right?
The national board is a bunch of junk, too. ONLY people directly involved with teacher candidates in an accredited teacher education program, such as supervisory teachers and students’ college teachers, should have anything to do with this. Giving it to be bunch of clueless part-timers, making piddling amounts of money, and giving them unilateral power to kill student teachers’ careers, is obscene.
I completely agree!
Thank you Julie and thank you Diane for giving voice to those of us who oppose the edTPA. One of the most concerning aspects of its implementation has been the silencing of voices of dissent, of even questioning it as an instrument. That silencing has many origins I imagine, but the Pearson connection, the commitment to a scaling up contract, excludes the possibility of ‘no.’ Across the country faculty are being required to sign non-disclosure agreements for the required use of the edTPA. So much for academic freedom.
But the even deeper issue is the degree to which any high stakes standardized assessment limits our understandings of what it means to know, learn and teach. In this age of accountability it seems absurd, what with the calls for uniformity and conformity, but what it means to know, to teach and to learn are deeply contested–and should be. Schools of education, faculty and students within those schools, teachers, k12 students, parents, community members should be exploring, discussing, debating, uncovering, imagining what it means to teach, to learn and to know. Those conversations are what constitute education. Its about the questions we ask, not the answers we give. A standardized assessment is contrary to a frame that begins and ends with questions.
While some might disagree and posit certainty where others see uncertainty, the demand for certainty that we see in the edTPA -especially as a high stakes assessment–nullifies the questioning stance; a stance many of us hold to be central to teaching and learning.
So, if I understand this correctly, Pearson Inc. has the power to decide who gets to be a teacher, at the end of their college career? Everyone that is, except TFA teachers, they get to be teachers automatically after 5 weeks of training with no student teaching what so ever. What choice will ‘real’ student teachers have after studying for 4 years to be a teacher if Pearson doesn’t think they are up to snuff…oh I know sign up for TFA, study for 5 weeks and become a teacher through the back door, right?
I smell a class-action lawsuit here.
For meaningful discussions (pro or con) about a topic, we need to have the “facts.” Not knowing what edTPA is, I did a little research. Granted, it was very little and from their web page, which could obviously contain bias. What I discovered:
1. In response to Dr. Gorlewski’s letter, these videos do seem to be evaluated by educators–both K-12 and higher education.
http://www.scoreedtpa.pearson.com/index.cfm?a=cat&cid=2237
2. In response to teacherken, it appears as though there are some elements of national board requirements. It appears as though candidates include lesson material, student work and reflections along with their videos.
http://edtpa.aacte.org/faq#21 (specifically the question “How is edTPA constructed and used?” under General Information)
However, in looking at the answer to this question, I’m not sure what they’re looking for from a student teacher. I couldn’t find any kind of scoring guide or rubric. The expectations are worrisome to me, especially if some states are using the “results” to determine licensing. We all know that it takes time for a teacher to begin to develop rapport with students and begin to master teaching. Yes, there are “naturals”, but I believe these are the exception–not the norm. From my own experience student teaching (too many years ago to count), I did observe in a the class I eventually student taught in, but I was only there 3/days a week and these observations didn’t start until school had been in session for a month. All of the class norms and expectations had already been set.
Honestly, I’m having a hard time grasping this idea with people who are just starting out–under artificial conditions.
The calibrated scorers are hired by Pearson, Inc on a piece work basis. That is, they are paid for each scored edTPA. Currently in schools of education, student teachers are evaluated by a team that includes their cooperating teacher, a supervisor from the university, and university faculty. This team has extensive knowledge of the context, of the day to day life of the classroom, of the student teacher’s growth trajectory. Why bring in a person who must not know the student teacher, who views a limited and constrained video and set of writings, and who is using rubrics to determine the student teachers readiness? Why take work that is currently being done by faculty and out source it to the realm of casual labor? Your point is well taken. Why make the conditions for evaluation more artificial when we have the current conditions of people who know the authentic conditions of student work? One answer is that we have learned to not trust ourselves or
our knowledge. Another is that we have learned to demand certainty where it cannot exist.
Every teacher candidate who is to be assessed by the edTPA is provided a copy of the edTPA Handbook, which contains rubrics, lists of what to submit and extensive directions and a glossary. Most universties have their candidates learn about the edTPA requirements before having to submit the final assessment.
All true. But think of all the time that is taken away from prospective teachers learning about the larger purposes of schooling and the preparation of citizens to actively participate in a democracy. Consider as well the messages about what teaching is (preparing for the EdTPA) that are the result of the edTPA itself. Prospective teaches of today may not even be able to imagine how the edTPA is changing the notion of what teaching is and should be.
It doesn’t matter what they submit. This is usurping the traditional process of certification by overruling college professors and supervising teachers by a bunch of clueless strangers willing to sell the profession down the river to further enrich Pearson.
You don’t get it. Pearson has NO business in certifying teachers and usurping traditional teacher education programs. This is outright usurping of college teacher preparation programs and will destroy the profession. A bunch of lousy-paid strangers having unilateral power to kill a student teacher’s career is NOT acceptable–EVER.
When you write nine comments – and I’m sure more are coming – in a short period of time, you appear a fanatic and any validity your comments might have are overlooked because you seem CRAZY.
You smell a lawsuit, eh? Are you a disgruntled Pearson employee or a lousy student teacher or an adjunct who lost their position because of this process?
Please calm yourself down.
I can’t believe colleges and universities would agree to subject their students to this “assessment” in this way. It in some ways undermines the university’s mission & endorsement, role of cooperating teacher and university advisor. Your cooperating teacher and advisor could determine you’re a fine teacher candidate and present evidence that says so, but edTPA could determine otherwise (and vice versa). This is stupid.
Colleges and universities are not necessarily supportive of the edTPA. The states are imposing it, and if a university opts out, well, then the students will not receive their credentials
If students at schools of education aren’tpassing the Edtpa, it’ll make the school of education look bad. Therefore there’s incentive to teach to the test. Also, in a couple of years, kids’ test scores will be linked back to their teachers’ school of education.
Also, it’s not just a video but a huge amount of work assessed with some 14 rubrics. It’ll suck up huge amounts of the time in student teaching.
The whole point of this fraudulent scheme is to close down colleges of education and destroy teaching as profession. I can’t believe anybody here thinks what Pearson is pulling is okay.
To the person who wrote the nine recent comments on edTPA….I have a couple comments –
1. Your frustration should be with the policy makers, not the assessment in itself. Added to that, I am guessing that in those states that have policy around performance assessments such as edTPA that there are observations and feedback from faculty, etc,
2 This is about the professionalization of our profession – to become a lawyer, one must pass the bar, to become a doctor the medical boards. And candidly, to me, one issue of those professions is that a multiple choice test determines if you pass or fail…
3. Many of your posts point the finger at Pearson. Pearson did not create this assessment. Pearson does not score this assessment. K-12 educators score the assessment, IHE professors score the assessment. Educators, not a corporation, are determining scores after rigorous training
4. For those that do not score well the first time, there are policies in place for re-submission….this is NOT a one time and you are out assessment
5. Finally, I ask you – should the cooperating teacher and supervisor be the only people who judge? How often has it been the case where, because we don’t want to fail and we want more people to go into education, that we deem teachers who are mediocre ready for certification…and then pay the consequences later?? Instead of putting energy against this assessment and making assumptions about the scoring, why not put energy into creating good teachers. I can assure you, if you are working towards creating teachers that create enriching lesson plans, who engage students in the classroom and who constantly analyze their student work to help prepare them for the next days lessons then those candidates will have no problems with edTPA.
After 4 years and $90,000 ; my daughter , a senior majoring in education in NY state , tells me , ” The perfect students who have turned in their edTPAs have been rejected , why should i spend $300 only to be turned down ,,, ”
Even her advisor at school is painting a very negative picture of the odds of her edTPA being approved .
I am concerned about those who directly supervise the student teachers being usurped by outside individuals , who are not in direct contact with the student who wishes to be become a teacher . When did we become so dehumanized ? The best teachers have that intangible something that you must experience first hand .This whole situation is a shame .
What about the issue of different evaluators having different standards and the resulting lack of continuity in scoring the edTPA ?
Nancy – First of all, I am sorry to hear about your daughter’s experience…I would still encourage her to apply for the edTPA. I am curious to hear about the perfect folks that are being rejected – are they far off from the passing score? What was it that made the difference.
To answer one of your points, each of the evaluators go through common training and must calibrate on three different practice portfolios, so that helps determine the same standards. You mention that “spark” that is seen in a teacher…I agree with you about teaching being both an art (where the spark is) in addition a “science”, where there are specific skills…However, the same differences that you discuss mentioning in edTPA scorers could also occur with supervisors – one supervisor could think someone is not ready to teach while another thinks they are…we are all human.
I know that the situation in NY State is one filled with anxiety, but instead of focusing frustration on the assessment tool, why not focus it on educators. I have heard that trainings were held across NY state for higher educators to learn more about edTPA to help prepare their candidates. I have spoken with many higher educators who see faults in the assessment, but at the same time recognize their responsibility to prepare their candidates…
I am hopeful that instead of being negative and thinking, “What’s the point” that your daughter’s adviser or others may instead think of ways to help her succeed on the assessment.
jlsteacher ,thank you for your reply and the information regarding evaluators. I don’t know specific information regarding the scores of those students who had their edTPA rejected .
My daughter’s college provided a seminar in August to introduce the edTPA to education students but after that they seem to be pretty much on their own .I am somewhat dissapointed that more support is not offered by the college but I believe this is because the students are supposed to do the edTPA on their own .
I agree with MathGuyBri that pairing the student teacher experience with completing/worrying about the edTPA is overwhelming and detracts from the energy which would be better invested to student teaching .
If I was calling the shots the student would complete their student teaching and then the following semester ,an assesment tool such as the edTPA would be a next semester project . It is asking too much of young teacher candidates to do both at the same time ; especially if we want them to do well on both .
Good luck to all you student teachers and educators working through this
Nancy – thanks for the response…I want to also respond to MathGuyBri and Stacey who are experiencing edTPA right now.
I think there is a lot of confusion around what type of support candidates are supposed to get from faculty members, supervisors, etc. While the edTPA is supposed to represent the student’s own work, it is not the case where faculty are supposed to simply say, “”Good luck” to students. Some have compared it to a dissertation – where graduate students get feedback from their committee, but the committee does not re-write sections of the final product. Ideally schools will find ways to include aspects of edTPA into their previous coursework so that students completing it will not feel overwhelmed. So if faculty are simply being hands off, that has never been the intention of the assessment.
Stacey – you mentioned being guinea pigs, and sadly that is probably true…in all studies, assessments, etc. there always has to be a first. There were the first test pilots, the first astronauts, the first who try a cancer treatment. While this is scary, think of being pioneers…As for it ruining your student teaching, outside of the commentaries, I wonder what is different…edTPA promotes aspects of good teaching – I am sure you are planning already for classes…the video taping is something different, but watching yourself teach is a practice that many already use…and I am sure you are assessing your students… you may not see it, but the practices that you are doing are helping you become a better teacher.
They had better tell students at the onset of their college enrollment that they will be subjected to this ridiculous intrusion into reality. Teaching a lesson that is staged in any way doesn’t prove anything valuable. Besides, some people are so self-conscious, they’d never subject themselves to being video-taped. I just have to wonder why Pearson is deemed to be the “last word” on what students and teachers need to know and be. I am so glad I retired from the madness.
Linda Darling Hammond and a group of representatives of California universities are the originators and supporters of what is now the edTPA. It is they who decided to get help with the task of “scaling up” from Pearson. And they remain extremely supportive of this assessment practice that is neither reliable or valid, seemingly impervious to the groundswell of criticism . Millions of dollars and hours will now be devoted to a mode of assessment that is intended in the long run to improve “achievement” –read: high stakes standardized test scores.
In speaking casually to college admissions contacts, it seems that a lot of universities require portfolios and welcome videos as part of college application. It may be that, with the prevalence of cell phone cameras etc., students now are far more comfortable with being video’d than I ever was when I was starting out.
Regarding edPTA, does it or does it not require reflection and some form of portfolio on the part of candidates?
Speaking casually to colleagues in college admissions, it seems that portfolios with video components are frequently accepted for college admission applications. With the prevalence of cell phones etc., students now may be far more comfortable being video’d than I ever was when I was starting out.
Does this evaluation include reflection and a portfolio, or does it not? I couldn’t find a definitive answer on the edTPA website.
Well considering that the edTPA suffers the same errors resulting in it being completely invalid why would one want to use it? IDEOLOGY plain and simple. What follows is my response to Diane’s other post on standardized testing:
And that is what it (the devotion) is-faith based. As Noel Wilson has shown* educational standards and standardized testing need that faith based devotion in order to survive. It is an ideology and, like any religion, one must cast aside/deny/ignore the multiple contradictions of the ideology to be a “true” believer.
“i·de·ol·o·gy 1. The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture.
2. A set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system. (from thefreedictionary.com)
The ideological movement of educational standards and standardized testing has gone from the individual (Spearman, Yerkes) to the group (educators) to the class of “elite” edudeformers and finally through the edu-philanthovulture’s monies to buy media time and politicians to come to permeate our culture.
“Someday this testing madness will collapse of its own weight, as one foolishness is piled onto another and then another and then another.”
It will when the “group”, the teachers, administrators (although I fear the vast majority of them are far too “invested” in their jobs and believe they are of the class of elite rheeformers) and parents read, understand and heed Wilson’s work, return to an egalitarian mode of education from the “merit” based sorting and separating modus operandi that is educational standards and standardized testing. Until then, we will keep reaping the rotten fruits of educational standards and standardized testing and continue to cause harm to the most innocent of society, the children. What an abomination this educational standards and standardized testing ideology is!!
*See: “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
As a trained NBCT edTPA assessor and a 20+ year content specialist educator and parent… I am appalled, but not surprised at the numerous errors in the article attached! Please take a moment to look at what it “takes” to be an assessor at the following links: http://www.scoreedtpa.pearson.com/index.cfm?a=cat&cid=2563. http://www.scoreedtpa.pearson.com/index.cfm?a=cat&cid=2237 Also, the assessment itself is for pre-service candidates (student teachers). Pre-service educators are far more prepared than what they were twenty or even five years ago, which clearly shows in the written and video assessments. As a parent I am thankful for rigorous assessments of pre-service educators and administrators. It is disgusting to witness the hiring of poorly educated (if at all in the field they are teaching) personnel , with little or no experience, and unqualified according to the the title of “highly qualified”.
What is your evidence that pre-servide educators are far more prepared? I have been in the field for over forty years, beginning in St. Louis, and taught teachers at an excellent department of education in California. Until subjected to the predecessor of the edTPA I can say conclusively that the quality of teachers earning credentials changed overall very little until the coming of the edTPA. This new form of testing (that does not measure performance) will usher in teacher prep programs that put a priority on following scripted lesson plans, not on developing teachers who are humane thoughtful, fair, creative and critical. The edTPA does not measure these qualities.
So what is your evidence, beyond anecdote? “Conclusively” is a pretty strong claim, begging evidence
In response to Aimee Atkins’ response below, the burden of proof is on those who are proposing to implement a test of no proven value to the tune of millions of dollars that could be better spent in a myriad of ways to improve and make affordable teacher education. It is true that there is no “hard” incontrovertible scientific evidence to support our positions (nor, in my view, is it possible to gather such evidence.) But only one of the positions requires putting millions of dollars into practices with no any evidence to warrant doing so.
You have no business working for a corporation who has as its goal to destroy teaching as a profession and make excuses for it. You aren’t qualified to assess a student teacher that you don’t know. You apparently don’t get what this is really about, but you are a willing tool to destroy teaching as a profession.
edTPA is based on the Performance Assessment for California Teachers, which is used in the program where I teach. You can find lots of information about PACT here: http://www.pacttpa.org/_main/hub.php?pageName=Home . I don’t know how much the PACT differs from the edTPA.
PACT is much more than a video. Our students write 30-40 pages along with the video. Writing includes a description of the school/classroom/community setting, a description of 2 focus students, a 4-5 lesson unit plan plus rationale, and writing about what they did in the video and why. For multiple subject students (usually K-5), it’s a unit in ELA or in math. (The program chooses which one. Students don’t choose.) These students also complete three Content Area Tasks before they begin the PACT, one each in science, social science and math or ELA, whichever one the PACT doesn’t do.
There are 12 rubrics for the PACT and 3 rubrics for each CAT. Students who get high scores on the PACT are savvy writers who can write to these rubrics.
You can bet that completing the PACT dominates the student teaching semester. It takes so much time in our seminars that could be spent on other things that the seminar professors and the student teachers find to be important. Students are glad when they are done with PACT because then they can really focus on learning to teach.
“all and all you’re just another brick in the wall”
You are still trying to make sense of this!
Wake up!
Follow the money!
Absolutely right! Follow the money because thatis what it’s all about!!!
There are big inaccuracies in this blog post: Just to name a few:
The “temporary workers” for Pearson that the SUNY New Paltz instructor refers to as edTPA scorers are, in reality, teacher educators and teachers who are selected by a rigorous process developed by the edTPA consortium that includes how to make decisions based on evidence, not on bias regarding language, culture and/or socioeconomic background;
Videos are not taken without permission from schools;
And nowhere have I heard or seen of evidence that using the edTPA jeopardizes students in low-income or minority communities or takes away from the work of preparing educators to do this job well.
The edTPA was created by a national consortium of teacher educators and accomplished teachers to define, uphold, and support professional standards. It is the outgrowth of over two decades of effort by the teaching profession, propelled by the belief that the best way to determine the readiness of prospective teachers for teaching, is to have them actually demonstrate they can do it effectively. Unlike the impression given in your blog, the edTPA has been well-received around the country—spreading over the last ten years to 26 states and more than 120 institutions.
Because interest in the edTPA grew so rapidly, the edTPA consortium needed a partner to assist in national distribution. Evaluation Systems, now owned by Pearson Publishing, was selected, from amongst numerous bidders, for the job. Its role, however, is limited only to distributing the assessment and providing the scoring platform. Pearson is NOT involved in the development of the assessment nor does it control content, scoring, or policies. These are controlled by the edTPA Consortium’s Policy Board, which includes teacher educators, accomplished teachers, state standards boards and education agencies. Scorers are teachers and teacher educators who are reimbursed for their efforts, which include extensive training (designed by the consortium) to examine prospective teachers’ work in relation to edTPA rubrics.
Contrary to the claims in your blog, using the edTPA need not usurp the autonomy of teacher education programs. Programs still have the freedom—and responsibility—to develop and uphold their own criteria, courses, clinical experiences, and assessments. In fact, many that have used it report that it has enhanced their work and better prepared candidates for the realities of teaching. I work in a preparation program that is urban and prepares teachers who are predominantly the under-represented minorities in teaching. They also live and work in under-resourced communities. So far my colleagues and I have experienced many benefits from edTPA: we are talking together across roles and courses to develop a more coherent program; we are finding that edTPA is calling on us and our candidates to be intentional and explicit about what we do and why.
Because our public education system compels families to entrust our children to the care of the teachers who work in public schools, it has a moral and ethical responsibility to assure that these educators meet a defined standard of expertise. The edTPA, as part of state certification, is an effort to assure this because it requires teachers to demonstrate that they know how to teach before they are awarded the honor of assuming responsibility for children’s lives. While there is no such thing as a truly authentic assessment, those of us in educator preparation should welcome an assessment of our work that demonstrates what we know and can do so much better than a multiple choice standardized test.
Beverly Falk, Professor and Director, Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Education, School of Education, The City College of New York
See my response to Beverly Falk’s identical posting below
Oh, baloney. You are a tool for Pearson. You are NOT qualified to kill a student teacher’s career.
The director of the graduate level early childhood program at a major university is not qualified to determine whether her students should be teachers? I’d like to know who you think is better qualified.
As a disclaimer, I am neither pro or anti TPA. I think it has pros and cons. Personally, I think the better solution is to treat the first 3 years of teaching like a medical residency where you operate under another teacher’s license and that person is ultimately responsible for your students. At the end of 3 years, you then have to complete national board certification before you are eligible to teach under your own license.
Regardless, in earlier posts you suggest we should leave it up to the mentor teacher and university supervisor? As someone who has served in both capacities, you clearly have a romanticized view of that system. I’m currently mentoring 2 student teachers and I haven’t received any guidance from either university supervisor despite multiple attempts to contact them. One showed up once during a prep period and decided to count that as an “observation”. I haven’t seen her since, but apparently she’s written 3 observations. The other met with me before school started and so far as I know hasn’t been back since. I don’t believe she’s ever seen her student in a classroom. Yet, you claim these people have an intimate knowledge of what’s going on in the classroom? They have no idea. Sadly, this is the norm for my experiences mentoring student teachers in several different states over many years.
As a former university supervisor, I can tell you that many programs are so desperate to find placements for their student teachers that they take any warm body as a mentor and even then have to get creative (see above that I currently have 2 assigned). I’m fortunate that my program set reasonable limits for all of us so I was able to maintain consistent communication with both the students and their mentors, but I still had teaching, service, and research requirements to meet as part of my position -not to mention that some of my students were in schools more than 60 miles away. Even with careful planning using every available hour, it was nearly impossible to schedule more than 1 or 2 short observations in a semester. Given the outsized pressure to publish research, particularly before earning tenure, many of my colleagues felt that they had to choose between their career (doing research) or their students.
Now, I was also part of the team that was tasked with bringing TPA to the school. In doing so, we had complete autonomy in setting the standards and requirements for our students (we did it all in house). Using the program also allowed us to create graduate assistant positions for students who had at least 3 years of successful teaching experience and take some of the pressure off of the faculty supervisors so they could work more closely with the student teachers. (We didn’t pay Pearson)
Yes, the program is demanding. But the expectations align very closely to those they will face as teachers under the evidence based evaluation processes used in many states currently. They also look similar to those for national board certification. Further, as someone else mentioned it functions more closely to the licensure processes for medicine and law.
In my opinion, it should be hard to become a teacher. I’d be ok if a significant percentage of students failed the practicum process. If we want to be taken seriously as professionals, we need to change the perception that education is an easy major and teaching is a safe “fallback” job. This goes hand in hand with saving schools of education from the “alternative routes” to licensure. After all, both law and medicine have demanding licensure requirements that everyone must pass regardless of how they prepare, and I haven’t heard any calls for “alternative routes” to becoming a doctor or lawyer. There also aren’t politicians clamoring to “doctor proof” medical practice based on arbitrary statistics. Admittedly the evidence is circumstantial, but I think it’s reasonable to conclude that if we want to get non educators out of the education business, we need to set higher standards to get in. This necessarily includes using some sort of rigorous examination process that is universal (meaning everyone applying for a particular license must undergo it regardless of which school they attended or degree they earned) reasonably objective, based on real life application, and determined by experienced educators.
Only with a mechanism like this in place can we weed out TFA, alternative licensure programs, misguided foundations (walton, Gates, etc.), and profit hunters. TPA may ultimately not be that mechanism, but it is certainly better than what we had.
Sadly, much of what susannunes wrote is true. Many of our colleges are remiss in their teacher training. But two wrongs do not make a right. Forcing prospective teachers to go through the edTPA crap is a disservice to them.
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John Healy, first, having been on both sides i certainly don’t blame the faculty (at least overall). I’m sorry if i gave that impression. The flaws are in the system itself. The faculty (esp junior faculty) tend to be stretched too thin trying to serve too many masters with competing priorities. It’s a no win situation for everyone. Second, if this process is similar to what teachers have to do for their performance evaluations AND similar to the national board process AND is developed but the faculty at major schools of education AND evaluated by experienced teachers, I fail to see how it is doing a disservice? That implies that it somehow makes students who pass it less effective as teachers or perhaps less prepared for teacher evaluations when they get jobs. Again, I’m not an advocate (at best I’m a devil’s advocate), but I’ve not heard any evidence of that here. The primary complaints are the entirely counterfactual conspiracy theory that TPA was created by Pearson to undermine teaching, the complaint that students find it more difficult and some don’t pass, and the concern that students are being evaluated by outsiders. If you believe the former, then just stop reading now because no amount of evidence or reasoning can ever disapprove a conspiracy theory. As for the latter 2, I don’t think either is necessarily a bad thing. Here’s why I think that.
I’m in the process of collecting evidence for my evaluation right now. They types of questions I have to answer and evidence I have to provide could be right out of TPA. (Whether these evaluation processes are reasonable is another question.) Further, while not yet in effect, there is currently a push that at least a percentage of evaluations be either audited or conducted by an administrator from a different school. This is essentially TPA at the professional level, so doesn’t it make sense to expose students to it while they still have a support structure?
More analytically, the expectation is that our instruction is both intentional (meaning determined by specific student needs) and reflective. I think most people would agree that that is a reasonable expectation. But, the trick comes in proving that. How do you prove that you are making instructional choices based on specific student needs without detailing your thought process and providing supporting evidence? The question TPA makes students answer is, “Why do you think THIS strategy will effectively communicate THIS content to ALL of the students in THIS class and help then reach THIS particular objective on THIS day?” Then the follow up is, “Why did the lesson work or not work toward that specific end?” In my opinion, every teacher should be able to answer both of those questions about every lesson or activity they present. TPA (and my evaluation) just makes you do it in writing and clearly enough to convince another teacher.
As one other observation, in my experience, there are a lot of teacher candidates (and many active teachers) who are very good at the book knowledge – that is they know the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of teaching – but they have little understanding of (or interest in) the theoretical knowledge – that is the “why” and “when” of teaching. They are almost always poor to mediocre teachers. These are (spreaking about my direct experience only) the same types of teacher candidates who tend to struggle with TPA. Contrary to what TFA and many politicians would have you believe, having the right tools (book knowledge) is not enough. You must use the right tools at the right time with the right medium to get the desired result. I think that is what TPA is (broadly) trying to force student teachers to do.
Good points. I think the knock on edTPA is not on the intent but with the implementation. The result is the workload on prospective teachers has doubled as they are now serving two masters – Pearson and their traditional student teaching process in which they are being mentored and evaluated by college and k-12 faculty. I have watched my fellow students teachers agonize in trying to complete their culminating experience (7 out of 13 in my group of students teachers recently failed the edTPA). Also, my take is that the great majority of college and k -12 faculty either have no understanding of or are adamantly opposed to the edTPA process. There must be better coordination among all parties or this whole initiative will go the way of the new math or the open classroom.
this response is to both john healy and Eric who have recently engaged in what I think is great dialogue about the purpose and the possibilities of the edTPA. First, John – I am sorry that you were at a school that you didn’t feel supported you on the edTPA. That to me is unfair to you and the other students. As for you assumption that “at the great majority of college and k -12 faculty either have no understanding of or are adamantly opposed to the edTPA process” – I think this is really a case by case basis. At my institution we have worked hard over a five-six year period to engage faculty, mentor teachers, supervisors, etc. around what candidates do with the edTPA and how candidates can be supported. As for the notion that candidates are “now serving two masters – Pearson and their traditional student teaching process in which they are being mentored and evaluated by college and k-12 faculty” – first, I think this is very important -it is not Pearson that is evaluating. Yes, Pearson is an operating partner that organizing the scoring. But it is the Stanford Center of Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE) that helped create the rubrics and the assessment. They also created the training of the evaluators – who must be calibrated on three portfolios to become official scorers. By focusing on Pearson I think that automatically can skew ones opinion of the assessment.
To Eric – I agree with you that edTPA is very similar to what teachers currently do with their evaluations. Again, at our institution we are trying to make these connections more concrete for our students so that they see these connections. My hypothesis is that candidates that complete an edTPA may be better prepared for their teacher evaluations. Furthermore, many of the practices within the edTPA are about good teaching – planning with a focus on who your students are, asking engaging questions, providing detailed feedback…back to John – students shouldn’t feel like they are serving too masters, but rather in an ideal setting candidates should see the edTPA as an extension of what their colleges of education are advocating around teaching.
Finally I think both of you hit on a central point that implementation is highly important here. But the finger should not be pointed at Pearson, or SCALE about how edTPA was implemented at a college, or even a state. It should be pointed at the faculty of the college, or state legislatures who may have rushed using edTPA into law because of the pressures of groups like Teach for America, etc.
I see edTPA as an imperfect step in the right direction.
I agree, blaming Pearson is akin to looking for a scapegoat. You appear to have considerable knowledge of the edTPA process and background. And, yes, I am sure that its implementation varies from college go college. I can only speak from my experience. My university hired a former Pearson employee to shepard thirteen of us through the edTPA process. He went to considerable lengths to explain the mechanics of the final evaluation in which we send our “package” to Pearson. Much of his efforts could be considered as telling us how to game the evaluation system – things such as using the exact rubric verbiage in our responses. Yes, I passed the evaluation but the feedback I received was canned (merely copied from the rubric). Also, there was no interim feedback of any kind. I believe he told us that the evaluators were allowed only 45 minutes per packaage which seems a terrible culmination of a two year MAT journey.
Regarding what is known as interrater reliability, I have seen it used unsuccessfully in other fields. I personally think it is a fad, because with human nature being what it is, folks just don’t want to be standardized. Only time will prove me right or wrong. The most disappointing part of the endeavor was the complete lack of knowledge or cooperation with the edTPA process of my high school and college mentors.
Finally, I believe you truly want this to work. I certainly do. I have learned much from your posts and maybe I had an axe to grind from my experience. I sincerely hope that you will bring up my points to your fellow professors in your previously stated role as “devil’s advocate.”
On edTPA: I oppose standardization and outsourcing of human judgment
Dr. Ravitch – while I understand and appreciate the opposition to “standardization” I wonder if you think that there are certain components of “good teaching” that are consistent among different types of good teachers – urban, suburban, rural, etc. And if you do think that is the case, what is wrong with an assessment focusing on those practices?
as for the second part, other professions (doctors, lawyers, architects, etc) must taken common assessments. These assessments do not completely replace human judgement – residents still make rounds, lawyers must perform before passing the boards, etc. So how is edTPA different? no one, including SCALE, is advocating for teacher preparation programs to completely STOP having humans assess candidates.
There are big inaccuracies in this blog post: Just to name a few:
The “temporary workers” for Pearson that the SUNY New Paltz instructor refers to as edTPA scorers are, in reality, teacher educators and teachers who are selected by a rigorous process developed by the edTPA consortium that includes how to make decisions based on evidence, not on bias regarding language, culture and/or socioeconomic background;
Videos are not taken without permission from schools;
And nowhere have I heard or seen of evidence that using the edTPA jeopardizes students in low-income or minority communities or takes away from the work of preparing educators to do this job well.
The edTPA was created by a national consortium of teacher educators and accomplished teachers to define, uphold, and support professional standards. It is the outgrowth of over two decades of effort by the teaching profession, propelled by the belief that the best way to determine the readiness of prospective teachers for teaching, is to have them actually demonstrate they can do it effectively. Unlike the impression given in your blog, the edTPA has been well-received around the country—spreading over the last ten years to 26 states and more than 120 institutions.
Because interest in the edTPA grew so rapidly, the edTPA consortium needed a partner to assist in national distribution. Evaluation Systems, now owned by Pearson Publishing, was selected, from amongst numerous bidders, for the job. Its role, however, is limited only to distributing the assessment and providing the scoring platform. Pearson is NOT involved in the development of the assessment nor does it control content, scoring, or policies. These are controlled by the edTPA Consortium’s Policy Board, which includes teacher educators, accomplished teachers, state standards boards and education agencies. Scorers are teachers and teacher educators who are reimbursed for their efforts, which include extensive training (designed by the consortium) to examine prospective teachers’ work in relation to edTPA rubrics.
Contrary to the claims in your blog, using the edTPA need not usurp the autonomy of teacher education programs. Programs still have the freedom—and responsibility—to develop and uphold their own criteria, courses, clinical experiences, and assessments. In fact, many that have used it report that it has enhanced their work and better prepared candidates for the realities of teaching. I work in a preparation program that is urban and prepares teachers who are predominantly the under-represented minorities in teaching. They also live and work in under-resourced communities. So far my colleagues and I have experienced many benefits from edTPA: we are talking together across roles and courses to develop a more coherent program; we are finding that edTPA is calling on us and our candidates to be intentional and explicit about what we do and why.
Because our public education system compels families to entrust our children to the care of the teachers who work in public schools, it has a moral and ethical responsibility to assure that these educators meet a defined standard of expertise. The edTPA, as part of state certification, is an effort to assure this because it requires teachers to demonstrate that they know how to teach before they are awarded the honor of assuming responsibility for children’s lives. While there is no such thing as a truly authentic assessment, those of us in educator preparation should welcome an assessment of our work that demonstrates what we know and can do so much better than a multiple choice standardized test.
Beverly Falk, Professor and Director, Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Education, School of Education, The City College of New York
Just because the edTPA is the outgrowth of decades of effort and has “spread” is no evidence that it is valid, reliable, or improves teaching. The same claims can be made about k-12 high stakes standardized testing. High stakes standardized testing does not “spread.” It is pushed by the powerful and their often well-meaning collaborators.
The edTPA will continue to usurp the autonomy of teacher education programs as long as it is high stakes. AND one does not need the edTPA to talk across roles or to produce teachers who are explicit and intentional. These have long been qualities of good teacher education programs , and in spite of the implications of edTPA proponents, there are many of these across the country. It’s more likely that the edTPA destroys or severely limits these practices, by finessing students’ and teacher educators’ creativity and critical thinking.
This is all about abolishing schools of education and destroying teaching as a profession. Anybody who comes on here and makes excuses for Pearson is part of the problem with “reform.” I am disgusted people are making excuses for this garbage.
I concur with Beverly Faulk’s remarks. There are inaccuracies in the blog post. Critics of teacher preparation programs have long criticized us for not developing and deploying a national standard. The edTPA is designed to do just that.
edTPA was developed by the faculty and staff of the Stanford Center for Learning, Assessment and Equity (SCALE) who drew from more than 120 design and review team members comprised of university faculty, national subject-matter organization representatives and P-12 teachers. It was created collaboratively, drawing on the best practices and research in education. The result is a consistent, national platform, field tested and proven to be an excellent indicator of how well a new teacher will perform in the classroom.
Would you want a lawyer representing you who was not qualified? A doctor treating you who could not pass their boards? Under-prepared teachers in charge of your child’s education? Then why would we, as professional educators, be resistant to a national standard of teacher preparedness?
The edTPA benefits new teachers through the assurance it provides them that they are ready for the classroom. Young teachers who have successfully passed the edTPA and gained their certification can enter the job market confident that their tuition dollars were well spent. Their performance on edTPA will indicate whether they have gained the necessary preparation to succeed.
The convergence of best practices in teacher evaluation and technology has provided our profession with the opportunity to once and for all establish a nationally available assessment. edTPA is to the field of education what the bar exam is to the legal profession. A national standard ensures every new teacher who steps into a classroom is prepared for success.
Certainly, there are issues to work out with a project of this scope. The technology is complicated and the infrastructure required to fully implement the assessment will challenge some rural or remote programs. We have a difficult road ahead, and the good news is edTPA offers schools, parents and young teachers themselves an accurate and reliable platform to predict success in the classroom, and by extension, the quality of education a child will receive in that classroom.
I will identify just a a few of the many assumptions imbedded in the arguments Renee Middleton makes in support of the edTPA.
She claims “It was developed by the faculty and staff of the Stanford Center for Learning, Assessment and Equity (SCALE) who drew from more than 120 design and review team members comprised of university faculty, national subject-matter organization representatives and P-12 teachers” She assumes that the fact that there were 120 means that the full spectrum of perspectives about the purposes of education and qualities of good teaching were represented. However, to many of us this group of 120 represented a very limited part of the spectrum of views on the importance of education for social justice and faith in the validity and reliability of the tests.
She claims, “The result is a consistent, national platform, field tested and proven to be an excellent indicator of how well a new teacher will perform in the classroom.”
Many of us believe there is no evidence that the edTPA is an indicator of how well new teachers perform. Where is the independent evidence for this claim?
Hello Ann. For clarification —your first comment about 120 being a small number of participants. That is a starting point. As more IHEs have become engaged in the implementation of edTPA, so has the number of participants serving on benchmarking, scoring, and local evaluation. Continuous improvement of the assessment is ongoing and the Online community (on edTPA website) provides another opportunity to share and learn more about how it is being utilized across the country. Further, the assessment is not to be used in isolation but in conjunction with signature assessments and practices of each university’s student teaching experiences. Differentiation is an important aspect of the assessment as well as planning, instruction and assessment with a focus on meeting individual student needs.
Regarding independent evidence of teacher performance, I point all readers of the blog to articles currently found on the edTPA.AACTE.org site.
Thank your for asking the important questions that need to be asked and for having an open mind about advances in the teaching profession.
Response to Ann’s comment. Good points. They may have done a lot of work on this assessment, but if it’s being put in place to take precedence over what ed schools already do to evaluate their students, it should be held to a very high standard of proof given the expense. They need to show it’s not producing false positives or false negatives, e.g, that it’s accurate for each individual, not just on average. The video example i saw at a training showed a (passing) competently performing teaching carrying out an extremely dumbed -down lesson.
Dear Edschoolsubversive colleague. I take your comments as a desire to seek accurate knowledge and information regarding the edTPA. I have found that the people most vocal in their criticism of edTPA are often the ones who know the least about it. To this end, in an effort to help separate fact from fiction, I offer the following:
First, while it is correct that Pearson pays scorers $75 per portfolio, the scorers are all either K-12 teachers or IHE instructors. I have many faculty and teachers in our area who have gone through the scoring training twice (it has been upgraded and improved). I can attest to the fact that scorers have a thorough knowledge of each task. Each portfolio is also scored by two scorers. Pearson actively engages in performance reviews of scorers, using portfolios that have been benchmarked. Not everyone who applies for a scoring position is accepted, and some have to undergo remediation training in order to continue.
As to the concern about teaching in an urban setting, teacher candidates provide information concerning the type of school, specific learning needs, personal/family/community assets, and knowledge of the students’ social and emotional development, cognitive and physical development, and language development for communication. These are taken into consideration during scoring, which should relieve both Joel (the intern mentioned in the article) and Dr. Gorlewski.
Another error or inaccuracy was the statement that “Pearson will own videos of young people who have student teachers in their classrooms. This is being implemented without widespread knowledge or consent of parents in states where edTPA is being mandated.”
Permission slips are sent home to parents in order for their students to be included in the videotapes. Pearson has a sound model for safeguarding the videos for eudiometric purposes only.
Renee, I don’t believe all your comments in the post i’m replying to were related to my post, but a couple of comments. First, I attended a full-day training on EdTpa and have read chinks of the manuals. I’m restricted by a confidentiality agreement from discussing the videos I saw, but will say they raised concerns for me about the validity of the scoring. Also, I know the scorers are well selected and trained; what concerns me is how these scorers from a distance are trumping the local assessors who know the candidates, particularly when ed schools are revamping programs to teach to this test.
Edschoolsubversive…I understand your some of your concerns with the samples from the trainings. As with many products that are relatively new, sometimes it is challenging to get the best samples from the outset.
As for the piece of an outside evaluator trumping local evaluators – again I think this is a discussion that needs to be raised with a university or a state education dept – instead of directing concerns at this assessment, why not raise the concerns with other parties
Finally, to the idea that many schools of ed are revamping their curriculum to “teach to the test” I offer a couple of thoughts – one is that as someone who has helped score and participated in trainings, my message (and one that comes from others) is that schools SHOULD NOT teach to a test…but rather use the ideas that are in their own programs and, if necessary, adjust minor aspects to the assessment. My other question is – as someone who has read the rubrics, wouldn’t you agree that the components of the edTPA rubrics are ones that you would want to have in your program anyway, or would want to see your teachers doing? (maybe you wouldn’t agree with everything, but from my vantage point, the things that the assessment asks of candidates to earn 3, 4, or 5 are thing we would want our teachers to be doing…
You wrote: “My other question is – as someone who has read the rubrics, wouldn’t you agree that the components of the edTPA rubrics are ones that you would want to have in your program anyway, or would want to see your teachers doing? ”
Two responses to this.
1. Sure these are all good things. In the abstract. But I’ve engaged in the so-called calibration and I KNOW that calibratees do not and should not necessarily evaluate rubrics according to one gold standard. To be calibrated we must conform to a dominant mind set. We are always interpreting what we see in terms of our frames and values. Whose interpretation is the gold standard here?
Whose mind set is it?
2. The problem is what TPA rubrics are left out that are more important than the ones that are included? I don’t know what all the rubrics are, but I wonder if they attempt to rate candidates racism or sexism or compassion or flexibility. Or friendliness. (I don’t think these characteristics are any more slippery than the concepts encapsulated in the rubrics.)
Ann – you raise some interesting points..to the idea of whose standards…I go back to Renee’s comment that multiple, multiple educators are included in this process…so it is not just one person’s perspective..
You also wrote, “and I KNOW that calibrates do not and should not necessarily evaluate rubrics according to one gold standard. To be calibrated we must conform to a dominant mind set.” Again, as someone who has participated in leading trainings (both via Pearson webinars and local evaluation), I always offer the notion that the “gold standard” or the “answer key” answer is one person’s perspective – it is not a tool that everyone should simply confirm too, bur rather a tool that can lead to discussion…
To your point about interpreting things through our frames and our lenses, that is why in every training there is a discussion about bias. Bias is a part of human nature…you and I could look at a teacher and, because of our own personal experiences, offer two different opinions on their competencies as a teacher. This tool tries to eliminate those subjective aspects and offer ONE objective assessment (see my further comments on how other subjective assessments can and should be used by different programs)
As to the second point. can ANY one assessment really capture EVERY detail that is involved in teaching? edTPA does not aim to do so…you and others haven’t responded to my point that edTPA cannot and never claims to capture everything involved in the nuances of teaching. At my institution, we have professional competencies that would capture issues of racism, sexism, compassion, etc. We still value the opinion of mentor teachers, supervisors, etc.
But, I do think some aspects can be captured in the rubrics…the rubrics for instruction examine candidate interaction for all students as well as aspects of rapport/respect of student environment. Certainly if a candidate displayed blatant outlandish behaviors you are describing they could not score highly on these rubrics. As for more subversive feelings, I feel the rubrics would capture these aspects as well (at least one rubric discusses a candidate having a deficit perspective on his or her students)
1. My issue wasn’t that the video wasn’t a great example but that teaching that was technically competent but horrendously pointless and too easy for the students was given good scores.
2. This assessment is a mandatory fait accompli. This isn’t about whether the rubrics include some good qualities we want candidates to have but how high-stakes decisions are being made about teacher candidates by outsourcing and codifying assessment of them.
3. Of course ed schools shouldn’t teach to the test, but my point is that they will. The lengthy materials candidates are required to prepare will suck up much of the energy from their student teacher experiences. And to what end? Ed schools are already dealing with the small minority of students who aren’t really fit to be teachers.
And remember, my name here is edschoolsubversive because dissenting views aren’t particularly welcome in a program whose current stated goal is to get students acing EdTpa.
In Renee’s response she argues, “As to the concern about teaching in an urban setting, teacher candidates provide information concerning the type of school, specific learning needs, personal/family/community assets, and knowledge of the students’ social and emotional development, cognitive and physical development, and language development for communication.”
How can an assessor evaluate the accuracy of the candidate’s representation of the urban setting and community assets. Or are all classes in all urban settings similar enough so that the paid Pearson assessor can evaluate the candidate’s perception of the complex of important differences among “types” of schools and urban classrooms. What do we know about the accuracy of the candidate’s rendition of “the type of school,” community assets, etc. Maybe the candidate missed many of the assets. How would the Pearson assessor determine this independently of the candidate’s claim? Someone who knows the school and the community, has been there, (like a student teaching supervisor) is much more likely to be able to accurately assess the candidate’s perception of the urban setting. For example, how does the Pearson assessor judge whether or not the candidate’s perception of the setting and the community is superficial, or is distorted by racial bias?
Anncberlak: You state: “Someone who knows the school and the community, has been there, (like a student teaching supervisor) is much more likely to be able to accurately assess the candidate’s perception of the urban setting. For example, how does the Pearson assessor judge whether or not the candidate’s perception of the setting and the community is superficial, or is distorted by racial bias?”
Indeed, the role of the clinical supervisor remains essential as one measure of the candidates effectiveness while they are in the program. There is no replacement for the clinical supervisor (like a student teaching supervisor). In Ohio, we use edTPA as just one metric to determine if the candidate is ready for the job.
There are no fail-safes. How do you currently “assess if the candidate’s perception of the setting is superficial or distorted by racial bias?” That is something each program needs to assess with our dispositions and other methods unique to each program. The edTPA will not do our work for us as educators. If our candidates have challenges related to “racial bias”, it is inappropriate or a cop-out to think that the edTPA will be able to fix that. That is our role or the role of educator preparation programs.
Anncberlak–Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good!
Renee writes, “your first comment about 120 being a small number of participants. That is a starting point. As more IHEs have become engaged in the implementation of edTPA, so has the number of participants serving on benchmarking, scoring, and local evaluation.”
Yes, more and more people score using the edTPA framework and rubrics, and no doubt there is some adjustment, some rearrangement of the deck chairs. However, we are concerned not with the numbers of persons involved, but with the paradigm that underlies the whole endeavor, and how it is dictating public education
Anncberlak: You state: “we are concerned not with the numbers of persons involved, but with the paradigm that underlies the whole endeavor, and how it is dictating public education”.
I think it is unfortunate if you are allowing any set of standards or processes to “dictate” what you do. At Ohio University, our The Patton College of Education is accredited by NCATE/CAEP. There methods of teaching and the learning outcomes we seek to achieve are aligned with INTASC, CAEP, and standards. However, neither the INTASC or CAEP standards, or edTPA dictates “how” we go about ensuring our candidates meet specific learning outcomes and objectives. How we go about preparing our candidates at Ohio University is left up to us–no dictates to us.
There is no there there…The profession is moving towards “performance based assessment”–as well it should. The edTPA is one approach designed to allow us to determine if the teacher is ready for the job.
The state of Ohio has adopted the edTPA and this was supported by BOTH our public institutions and each of our 40+ private institutions. We want to be held accountable to the public and the edTPA is but ONE of our “metrics” we use to be transparent about our candidates ability to perform effectively in the workplace based on an assessment tool that allows our candidates to demonstrate that they are ready to perform.
In response to anncberlak, a few things:
You write, “How can an assessor evaluate the accuracy of the candidate’s representation of the urban setting and community assets”
Part of the edTPA is the Context for Learning, where a candidate has a chance to explain the setting of the school, They also have a chance to share about the personal and cultural attributes of the school in their planning commentary” At some point, integrity has to come into play that a candidate is accurately portraying their school and their students. As for missing assets of a school, isn’t this something that many new teachers do already. To me, edTPA at least gets teachers thinking about possible school assets, etc.
But, more importantly as Renee points out, ” Further, the assessment is not to be used in isolation but in conjunction with signature assessments and practices of each university’s student teaching experiences” Most institutions that use the edTPA, including my own, still include supervisors or faculty observing teachers. edTPA does not replace this, but is in addition to this.
You write: At some point, integrity has to come into play that a candidate is accurately portraying their school and their students. As for missing assets of a school, isn’t this something that many new teachers do already. To me, edTPA at least gets teachers thinking about possible school assets, etc.”
Alas, I think you fundamentally misunderstand what I am saying. I am not saying that credential candidates intentionally misrepresent their schools or that they may lack integrity. What I am saying is that the edTPA is an assessment and that it is impossible to assess the candidate’s portrayal of the school if the assessor hasn’t been to the school and the community. Also, maybe your program does not “at least get teachers thinking about possible school assets.” But where I taught the curriculum put a great emphasis on deficit ideology before the curriculum was diverted by edTPA prep.
You write, ” Further, the assessment is not to be used in isolation but in conjunction with signature assessments and practices of each university’s student teaching experiences” Most institutions that use the edTPA, including my own, still include supervisors or faculty observing teachers. edTPA does not replace this, but is in addition to this.
In my experience and the experience of many others when all is said and done the assessments of the high stakes edTPA trump supervisor and faculty assessments. Supervisors and teachers may think the candidate is outstanding but if she doesn’t pass the edTPA she doesn’t get her credential.
So, the whole ‘reply’ link here may not be as precise as I would hope, but a few points.
I have worked extensively with the edTPA in its various iterations, as has Ann, who worked with it as PACT, and Delandshere (cited previously), who worked with its very early iterations and rejected it for its piecemeal interpretations of teaching. So please put that to rest. The issues, as I have noted in other posts, have to do with whether we need a national assessment, how a national assessment reproduces white colonial knowledge, what it means to educate for democracy and the necessity of maintaining that as contested, and the welcome mat for corproratization via Pearson into higher education that edTPA represents. I recommend a review of the articles in the most recent Rethinking Schools for a full discussion of these issues. I suggest, as well, that we speak directly to the question of why we educate in a democracy, what that teaching/learning might look like and what complicates that discussion under the neoliberal regime. In a moment when teacher education is under attack, I suggest we defend difficult indeterminate questions, complexity and uncertainty rather than the pretense of calibration/objectivity i.e.reproduction.
Here I sit the evening before my 80-yr old mother heads into back surgery, and yet I am moved to respond to this, so let that be a tell. I believe this assessment is a significant step forward for our profession, formed by our profession, informed by the national board process, to create a standard of practice for entry level teaching that we have not yet had. We have allowed informal standards of practice to suffice for judgement for readiness. If we get fussed up now, I’m not sure what that means for us.
I can assure everyone here that the process to become an edTPA scorer is not only easy, but at times blatantly unethical. I was one of the UMass students who refused to take the pilot version of the TPA last year. At the time, I was working on a PhD in the English Department at UMass while getting licensed in the school of education there. I received an email from a Pearson representative through my English Dept. email asking me (and other campus graduate students) to be a scorer for the TPA. This was a blatant ethical violation in my view. Graduate students should never be determining whether their colleagues receive a license or not! Additionally, I recognized that my status as a graduate student in English did not give me adequate qualifications to evaluate my peers in education. Graduate students teaching in the context of academia have no concept of the unique demands of K-12 public school education, which I realized as soon as I entered the school of education.
I have outlined my horrible experience with the TPA in an article that I wrote last year for the journal, Transformations, entitled “Resisting the Privatization of American Education: Student Teachers Say No.” If you want to get more perspective on the experience of student teachers, you can find it in the EBSCO database. In short, I’ve had 8 years of teaching at the university level, so I’m not lazy (as some TPA supporters claim about those who resisted TPA), or inexperienced, and I was not concerned about my ability to measure up to their ridiculous guidelines. However, I found the assessment to be a colossal waste of time for burgeoning teachers, totally unsuccessful at evaluating the most important aspects of being an inspiring teacher, and corrupt on multiple levels. My suspicions about the failure of Pearson to do their due diligence about scorers was affirmed when I received the email to score the TPA, which I HAD JUST TAKEN! I could have scored my own test! At every step of the process, I found a trail of lies and misinformation that was all tending toward making Pearson and its cronies a profit at the expense of graduate students and public school children.
Does anyone know if the edTPA is a requirement in the new “grad schools” like Relay and Match, too?
Having been calibrated as a scorer, my guess is that the quick stop ‘grad’ schools will love the edTPA because you can teach to it to master the test, if not the teaching. This testimony supporting ‘alternative certification’ suggests that those promoting quick stop teacher training will be fine with the edTPA. http://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/07.24.12_brown.pdf
Teaching to the test is a problem when one is sampling a domain to generalize mastery. A performance assessment is different in that it doesn’t sample to generalize but examines exactly the intended outcomes. Indeed a better comparison is coaching a pitcher to master the curveball. Frankly, whomsoever who can demonstrate proficiency should be granted the privilege and responsibility to teach, regardless of their pathway. Yet, I strongly believe that those who progress through comprehensive educator preparation programs will be far more likely to be successful.
One would think from the comments by some supporting the edTPA here that use of it eliminates the requirements that teacher candidates pass standardized tests for certification and entry to the profession, but that is not the case. This is more gatekeeping on top of standardized testing.
In my two decades of working in Teacher Ed, I have regularly observed and video-taped a lot of student teachers in their placements and reviewed those tapes with students, to help them reflect on and grow from their experiences. I cannot imagine why anyone in our field would support outsourcing that task to outsiders who are incapable of viewing the big picture, including relationship-based teaching and learning –which is especially critical in early childhood. That is like saying we don’t know how to do our jobs and the international-educational-industrial complex known as Pearson is more competent than we are.
The mention of making decisions “based on evidence, not on bias regarding language, culture and/or socioeconomic background;” seems to come out of left field to me, because I have no clue what exactly that refers to or where it might have been going on. All of this smacks of the neo-liberal shock doctrine of corporate education “reform.” Does this mean that we have corporation-bought professionals working in Teacher Ed now, too?
One of the basic arguments here seems to be:
1. Pearson is bad.
2. Pearson distributes edTPA.
3. Therefore edTPA is bad.
That is a little bit like saying:
1. McDonalds is bad.
2. McDonalds serves green salads.
3. Therefore green salads are bad.:
A close look at the actual assessments in question, and the experience of the students with whom I worked as they piloted the assessment, suggests to me there are a lot of “healthy greens” there.
That’s a straw man argument. It’s not about Pearson being the one who “distributes edTPA.” It’s about Ed Schools being required to outsource evaluating the performance of its student teachers via video tapes to Pearson scorers who determine entitlement for state certification.
Additionally, if the edTPA rubrics and scorers consider it to be perfectly fine for student teachers to be taught only ONE approach to teaching, acting as a drill sergeant, as learned in Relay and Match “grad schools,” that calls a lot into question about the test. Teachers should be equipped with a variety of strategies, in order to reach diverse learners, and certifying teachers who have learned a single military style approach to teaching is very short-sighted, since that is effective with just a limited, often cherry-picked, population. (Some would say it’s inhumane as well.)
Jon,
First red flag- An Educational “reform” is made mandatory!
Second red flag- Pearson stands to make millions from this “reform”!
edTPA may be the best thing since sliced bread but the red flags are waiving. Is it a good idea or is it just another corporate profit scam? Why is it made mandatory other than to guarantee huge profits for Pearson? We have been inundated with corporate “reforms” that have failed Education but succeeded in making profits for the corporations by taking money from Public Education. Why is this any different?
You apparently have skin in this scam. I afraid that your “healthy greens” are wilted by the green that you are collecting.
While Pearson is certainly in it for the profit, it is not fair to accuse someone who supports the edTPA of personally profiting from it.
However, I do think it is fair to explore the metaphor of the McDonald’s salad. It is my understanding that McDonald’s salads, when they are not loaded with all kinds of fats and sugars, are mostly iceberg lettuce, which is of marginal nutritional value. I also thinking of both the pleasure in and need for a variety of foods and the great benefits of preparing food at home, sharing a meal over a table with friends and colleagues. I wonder about McDonald’s salad as a nutritional gold standard. Last, it is against my ethical standards to eat at McDonald’s, due to their contributions to the undoing of ecological and community health and well being. What to do when my employer make my eating there mandatory?
I guess you’ll just have to be re-calibrated!
Reiterating a few facts highlighted by Janine and Bev — To add… Pearson does not own edTPA, which was developed by the profession for the profession. The development work as been led by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE) and we have had extensive input on the design by hundreds of teachers and teacher educators who have served on design teams, content validation reviews and scoring training/benchmarking committees. Scorers are teachers or teacher educators who are subject matter experts currently teaching in the fields in which they score edTPA portfolios and who have experience supporting and mentoring beginning teachers. No one scores unless they meet rigorous calibration standards after completing many hours of training. SCALE is fully responsible for the design and development of the scoring training. Pearson does not own candidate materials – candidates do. All video recordings are made with full disclosure and permission from parents/guardians. Lastly, edTPA scorers DO appreciate the diverse experiences of teacher candidates in a range of settings because they themselves work in these settings every day. The scorers are members of the profession working hard to prepare candidates to teach all students well.
Could you cite a reference stating the criteria for being selected as a scorer and research documenting to what extent the criteria are actually applied, please? Where could I find this on-line?
You write: “Lastly, edTPA scorers DO appreciate the diverse experiences of teacher candidates in a range of settings because they themselves work in these settings every day.”
First, does this mean that all those who score are presently teaching at the grade level for which they are scoring? If so, for how long have the scorers taught for ? (cite data, please.) Were they good teachers, or are they primarily interested in earning a few dollars after they gave up teaching? How many taught for less than five years? How do we know?
Second,the above claim is quite a non-sequitor. Scorers do not necessarily appreciate the diverse experiences of teacher candidates even if they do work in identical or comparable settings every day. However, many teachers have spent their careers in a single school or community, urban or suburban, teaching elite or poor children, etc. Perhaps Pearson matches scorers’ experience in terms of social class, grade level, and geography with that of the candidates they score . Alas, assessing, like teaching is so complicated.
There are lots of criteria for good teaching that are absent from the rubrics the assessors are required to use. Is it possible, perhaps, that the edTPA has not identified a universally accepted definition of good teaching?
As the foregoing conversation suggests, the issues around the edTPA are laced with paradox and dilemma. Here are several worth noticing:
1) The values of public accountability vs. values of local autonomy. The edTPA (like its forebear, the Performance Assessment for California Teachers) was developed by teacher educators in the context of intense and growing public policy pressure for teacher education programs to become more accountable for the quality of the new teachers they prepare. Many of the responders in this blog chain believe this pressure is unwarranted and unproductive. The theme running through the responses suggests that external accountability is bad, and local autonomy is good. But its not that simple. Anyone who has worked in a teacher education program knows that the richness of local judgments about who is ready to teach is accompanied by tremendous inconsistency in those judgments—teacher candidates considered successful in one program are not necessarily considered strong in another. Different tools are used to evaluate candidates from program to program… and virtually none of these tools are evaluated in terms of the consistency of judgments they render about candidate quality. Local judgment is indeed rich, humane and relational… and we need that richness to be a part of the judgments we make about teacher quality and teacher licensure. But local judgment is also variable, subjective and inconsistent… any teacher who has been subjected to the evaluation of an incompetent or ideologically-driven administrator knows this. Any teacher educator who is concerned with TFA’s policies of placing essentially untrained novices in high poverty-impacted schools should be concerned about problems with the absence of an external, objective measure of teacher quality in decisions about licensure.
The edTPA does not, and should not, displace local judgment about teacher quality, but it does provide an additional, independent, classroom-based source of evidence that is highly relevant to the complex and important decisions about teacher licensure that must be made with both outside and local perspectives in play.
2) edTPA vs. Value-added measures of teacher quality. There is no disputing the fact that the edTPA is costly, not just in terms of monetary costs, but also in terms of the costs in the time and attention of student teachers and teacher educators. An important dilemma that arises in the context of these cost issues concerns the de facto costs of the alternatives. One real irony here is that many policy makers would be more than happy to evaluate teacher preparation programs solely on the basis what are called “valued-added” measures of teacher performance–measures of how well teacher’s (P-12) students perform on standardized tests of academic achievement. And that would indeed get the complex and costly demands of the edTPA off the back of teacher educators. But if one is concerned about the curriculum costs of “teaching to the test” accompanying the edTPA (which is, after all modeled on the National Board assessments of teaching practice), it is worth considering the test-driven curricula that will likely emerge as programs are subjected to value-added accountability policies that many policy makers prefer. These dynamics are already emerging in states adopting program “report cards” based on valued added measures. While recognizing the substance of many concerns about the cost of the edTPA, it is worth remembering that it represents an important alternative to value-added measures—one which is not perfect, but much closer to the realities and complexities of the work that teachers do.
3) Quality of the tool vs. the quality of implementation. The effects of any tool have to do with both the features of the tool itself, and also the way in which it is used. The edTPA is no exception. My colleagues and I have been studying the implementation of PACT, and now the edTPA, for over a decade now in a series of both individual case studies and cross program comparisons. It is clear that how the tool, and the data it produces, are used by teacher educators vary tremendously across programs. Our studies make it very clear that the tool affords important opportunities for learning—for candidates, for instructors and for programs. However, whether and how these opportunities are taken up varies tremendously across programs, and depends (ironically enough) on local values and leadership. I do not doubt that the angry and bitter testimonials of some students and faculty that appear in this blog and elsewhere are rooted in real experiences. But when one compares these accounts of the implementation of the edTPA with others in which students, faculty, and cooperating teachers describe the tremendous value in what they have learned from their experiences with the assessment… it raises questions about differences in how the tool has been implemented. Our studies suggest that the “stance” one takes toward the tool matters tremendously—whether it is framed primarily an imposition on local autonomy and judgment, or as an opportunity to get new kinds of data on the table to be used as a focus for individual and collective analysis and improvement of practice. Clearly, teacher educators can play a significant role in producing either experience. Take your pick.
Cap Peck
Professor of Teacher Education and Special Education
University of Washington
Two quick points. First, the choice between VAM and edTPA is a false choice. There are other alternative responses to the demands for accountability emerging from corporate ‘reformers’. These would include a demand for more resources to support the kinds of lengthy, intensive, inefficient conversations across teacher educators, teachers, students (k12 and student teachers), parents and communities about why we educate, how we think about knowledge and knowledge production, the kinds of communities we want to build, how schooling connects to community and democracy, creativity, and a meaningful life. Second, the comment that one can ‘take your pick’ says everything about how this is not a choice but an imposition. As often happens when individuals or groups name a problem with a system, the act of naming becomes identified as the problem, not the issue named. Thus reasoned critiques are dismissed and marginalized. In this way edTPA not only restricts academic freedom, but erases teachers as public intellectuals.
You wrote ” tremendous inconsistency in those judgments—teacher candidates considered successful in one program are not necessarily considered strong in another.”
Right! The issue is who should be the grand arbiter. Who is qualified to impose consistency on the rest of us? What are the interests of those at the top of the hierarchy of “deciders”?
Do we think that the Department of education is carrying out the will of the people?
Dr. Gorlewski’s article acknowledges a concern about edTPA that someone unfamiliar with either the instrument or its proper use might have. And, unfortunately, she resorts to several flawed arguments to support her fears.
For one, Joel’s concerns — which she seemed to adequately allay by her reported reply — have little to do with what edTPA measures. In fact, at every point of the edTPA process, teachers are asked to acknowledge the specific academic, developmental and cultural needs of the specific group of youngsters in the class that is the focus of their careful plans and observations. As long as Joel identifies what is appropriate subject matter and methodology for the lessons in his edTPA and why those are most appropriate for those particular students at that time in their development, he will do quite well overall. And no corporate ogres will judge him incompetent or unsatisfactory.
Having used this instrument over the past three years in each of its incarnations, let me assure Dr. Gorlewski and others that the edTPA is a powerful tool for teachers — aspiring and experienced — to use to reflect and gain perspective on their evolving craft. Rather than ask us to surrender our most sacredly held understandings about what constitutes crucial professional elements of the learning moments we strive to create on a daily basis, it, rather, gives us a more precise way to describe and view those skills in action.
I urge Dr. Gorlewski and others to get a bit closer to edTPA and come to see it for the valuable tool it is.
You wrote: “As long as Joel identifies what is appropriate subject matter and methodology for the lessons in his edTPA and why those are most appropriate for those particular students at that time in their development, he will do quite well overall. And no corporate ogres will judge him incompetent or unsatisfactory.”
You seem to think the idea of what is appropriate is an objective determination. Who does decide what is appropriate subject matter and methodology? I guess it’s the writers of the rubrics and the calibrated scorers. Do you think it might be a bit difficult for someone who knows nothing of the teaching and school context beyond what the candidate has written to evaluate the candidate’s portrayal of the context, or assess the extent to which the methodology is appropriate?
Corporate ogres don’t judge. You know that. Assessors using rubrics that have been designed by a select set of teachers and teacher educators who it is claimed are outstanding in their field ( certainly more outstanding than those who are required to teach their students to get high scores on them ) are the ones who decide if a candidate will be credentialed.
So this is basically an internally crafted measure intended to increase accountability, as well as serve as a stop-gap to prevent value-added from being externally imposed? Right, and did kapos make life better for inmates and prevent exterminations?
Considering the demands made to Duncan last summer by a coalition of corporate sponsored “reform” organizations regarding Teacher Education: http://www.dfer.org/CoalitionRevisedFile.pdf, I think the business plan is the same free-market goal for Teacher Ed as for K12 –shutting down schools and privatizing, so they can create more of their own military style Teacher Ed training “schools” and feed off public funds.
Why on earth would highly educated people think that going along to get along will have a positive outcome with wealthy self-serving neo-liberals who are so greedy that they are willing to sacrifice our nation’s children, just so they can make even more money?
I think it’s time to take a high profile in contesting all the false narratives, euphemisms and outright lies, and expose the profit motives behind “the civil rights issue of our time” disguise.
This was posted by NCTQ the same day of the coalition’s letter to Duncan, “edTPA: Slow this train down”: http://www.nctq.org/p/tqb/viewStory.jsp?id=32495
Yep, kapos making their brothers and sisters tow the line means nothing when the end game is exterminating Ed Schools.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am both an edTPA scorer and serve on the faculty of a university that uses the assessment. As a former high school social studies teacher I welcome another measure to help identify the best young teachers and to counsel those not yet ready for the classroom.
Raising the bar to entrance into our profession is worthy goal. The edTPA, if used appropriately, can assist in doing just that. Would we like to have doctors, lawyers or pilots licensed without an external exam? It is a test worth teaching to. The requirements of the work sample demand thoughtful attention to engaging all students in focused learning and providing meaningful feedback on academic progress.
The edTPA has significant value as an independent, demanding, reliable and worthwhile component of teacher preparation system. Along with a comprehensive program of study, rigorous content area requirements, and extensive clinical experience with frequent, multiple observations by professionals, the edTPA can be a useful tool in creating the next generation of teachers. It can also easily serve as an external check for teacher preparation programs; providing feedback to that is unavailable in other ways. But, it should not be used in isolation. Any licensure system or preparation program that relies on a single measure to determine a candidate’s readiness, or as a black ball like exclusionary technique, is foolish. Legislatures should be repeatedly cautioned on this.
It is not perfect, it does not measure all that is important in teaching, and nothing can. But over that last several years of design and field testing, I have seen significant revision efforts that leads me to believe the edTPA will continue to improve. I also have sympathy for the concerns over the high costs that must be resolved. We need to make the financial barriers to becoming a teacher lower, while making performance expectations higher. edTPA and forums like this one, can add to these worthwhile pursuits.
“Would we like to have doctors, lawyers or pilots licensed without an external exam? ”
People already have to pass external exams to become certified to teach in public schools. My state requires and administers a minimum of three different tests that each teacher must pass.
So how would you score this?
Would you please point me to data gathered by independent sources—researcher who aren’t and weren’t personally connected to the edTPA— that supports your claims that “The edTPA has significant value as an independent, demanding, reliable and worthwhile component of teacher preparation system” and “the edTPA can be a useful tool in creating the next generation of teachers.”
Where’s the empirical support for instituting this costly process. What’s the rush to institute a costly program before there is ANY reliable and valid research to prove or even indicate its value.
Doesn’t this all return us to the validity and reliability of the instrument? I have had similar conversations with our student teachers who will do their practicum in the most challenging urban learning environments. The samples from Pearson have not yet provided evidence of the expectations regarding classroom management. There is an expectation of a group of receptive students and a preservice teacher who motivates interactive learning experiences while applying research based methods and directing all communication to include academic language. In many of our urban settings, the diverse population demands several levels of differentiated instruction, along with classroom management skills of a seasoned teacher. Consequently, a scorer who is not familiar with the demands of the learning environment could misinterpret interruptions, or lack of interest (on the part of the students) and poor communication. Many of my preservice teachers are bilingual, and have accents. Will this be considered poor communication when evaluated by someone with less exposure to diverse learning environments?
Having attended several workshops, reviewed the materials, and met with several educators, the concern should be will the instrument measure what it is intended to measure? In order to answer questions of validity the instrument needs to be evaluated strictly as a measurement of a novice, not at expert. Context needs to be considered as a primary factor in the effectiveness of the learning outcomes, not the role of the teacher candidate.
I want to propose a symposium to AERA to bring some clarity to this specific issue – evaluating preservice teachers in the urban setting with valid and reliable instruments, perhaps proposing some adjustments to edtpa rubrics as a result of the session –
If anyone is interested please respond –
There are many people, I among them, who think that the very goals of developing valid tests and reliable scoring is suspect, given the ethical and empirical complexity of the teaching enterprise. (See the article I wrote in Rethinking schools a couple of years ago called “Coming soon to your favorite teacher credential program: national exit exams.”) Using rubrics requires that we all look at the same criteria or indicators of good teaching to decide if a student is qualified to teach. Who writes the rubrics? Whose perspectives are left out?
And what does it mean to learn how to assess performance on every rubric the same way that every other assessor does? Achieving this conformity from each assessors is what makes scoring reliable, and it is the purpose of “calibration.” The assessors are supposed to become as predictable as machines.
Tinkering or adjusting won’t solve the problem!
I want to concur with kentw’s comments and a few more of my own. And, I will disclose that I have been a scorer and scoring supervisor as well as I work at a university that has its candidates complete the assessment. Since there has been a lot of discussion here, I will break down my comments into a few different areas:
The Assessment:
As kentw and others have noted, the edTPA is not a perfect assessment (I would love to find one!) and has continually improved over the past three years. To the concern that teachers would be scored differently because they teach in urban settings, the assessment includes a “Context for Learning” where students can describe their school setting. Training also focuses on scorers to remove potential biases, such as the type of placement, etc.
One of the other misconceptions about the assessment is that it is driven by Pearson. As others have noted already, that is not the case. It is driven by the rather small, but busy, staff at SCALE that works on the edTPA. The staff at SCALE is very open to any suggestions to the assessments, suggestions that are coming from university faculty and K-12 educators. Pearson mainly helps manage the enormity of the task of taking this assessment to a national level. At various sessions around bench marking, Pearson staff could not and would not answer technical questions on scoring or the rubrics (such as, “Should this be a 2 or a 3?). They directed such questions on the instrument to SCALE staff.
The assessment is also aligned to commonly used frameworks such as Danielson’s Framework for Teaching. I had one candidate who completed the edTPA and then was hired in a district that was adopting Danielson’s FFT. That candidate felt very prepared (more than many of his fellow colleagues) for FFT because he had successfully completed edTPA
When I graduated from a higher institution in secondary education, my “portfolio” was a notebook filled with lesson plans, observations, reflections, etc. A faculty practitioner did see me teach during the semester. But the final culminating project did not include any video of my teaching. I truly believe that the edTPA is a better reflection of a teacher candidate’s work. I sometimes think it’s interesting that while we as educators push for authentic assessments, project based learning and higher order thinking that our colleagues in law and medicine still use multiple choice exams as a measure of competency…Imagine if as part of a bar exam included video of a law candidate trying a case. Someone mentioned that their state currently has candidates complete three exams to become licensed. I am not sure if many of those are Praxis exams or similar exams, which often measure content or questions about pedagogy, but never include video of a teacher teaching. The edTPA includes this valuable piece of evidence
Finally, as kentw and others noted, edTPA should not replace the work of supervisors and mentor teachers who see a teacher candidate. At our institution, it supplements their work. The edTPA has helped our institution see gaps where we need to better prepare our own teachers.
Scoring and Pearson
As many have noted, scorers come from either higher ed or come from K-12. Many of them are NBCT teachers (Sorry, I do not have the exact numbers on me for this data). Trainers must complete two qualifying portfolios successfully in order to scores. In addition, scorers are back read by scoring supervisors, who examine their work (at least 10-15% of their work) and provide detailed feedback on scoring. This type of work is not done to create one specific mindset of how to teach, but rather to help provide more consistency in scoring. As someone who has participated in this process over the past two years, I can tell you the process has continued to evolve for the better. Scorers this year must highlight evidence that is used to support their scoring decisions. I believe that this is an area that can and will continually improve. Is the system perfect? No. but that goes back to my earlier point about finding a perfect assessment or scoring system.
edTPA and its impact on education:
As many of you may know, colleges of education have recently come under fire. Many believe that alternative certification programs of programs such as Relay U can better prepare teachers for the classroom. Right now, there is no tool that can validate or deny this claim. edTPA could be that tool…and could demonstrate how colleges of education ARE preparing its students well, or better, than some of these other programs.
For those of you who have expressed that you have felt the edTPA was “forced” onto you, my suggestion is that at workshops or trainings, examine the content of the rubrics. Like any tool, they are not perfect. However, I imagine when you examine them, you will find aspects of teaching that you already share with your students. You may also find that you are already doing many of the things the edTPA is doing. As a previous high school math teacher in an urban district that was constantly changing its curriculum, I understand the idea of feeling forced to do something that you may not agree with. But one of the differences with edTPA and SCALE is that it is an organization that is often willing to listen to constructive criticism and open to conversations. I go back to my original point – in my years as a student, as an educator, and now as someone at higher ed, I have not found the perfect assessment or the keys to great teaching (those that come up with them will be super rich someday). However, I believe that the edTPA is on the right track to being a tool that can be effectively used to not only measure preservice candidates’ readiness for the classroom, but also help prepare them on the path for national board certification.
Just to be clear, I have worked with the edTPA since 2010, when three student teachers agreed to use it as part of a pilot. I was calibrated in spring of 2011, and worked with it in spring 2012, when the students at Umass refused to send their work to Pearson for the field test. I am very familiar with the instrument.
The very first students to use it reported their experience to a class that was studying the TPA. To a person they agreed: interesting way to begin conversations about teaching, don’t ever use this to determine certification- the scoring is reductionist and absurd.
My own experience with calibration was twofold. On the one hand, it was indeed a calibration, reducing and marginalizing my knowledge and experience to a formula. On the other hand, it was meaningless, as I could obtain close enough scores with a light skimming of the material. As students reported to me in all three years I worked with them and the TPA, they could and did write to the rubrics. I could and did approximate scoring at a glance. This exposes one of the great unspoken truths of all of the accountability regime: it is a ruse, laced with fabrications of all kinds.
I highly recommend Biesta’s 2004 discussion of accountability and democracy. I also recommend Delandshere and Arens (2001) in which they conclude: “The patterns emerging from the data indicate that teacher educators’ degrees of resistance or cooperation with externally imposed frameworks is influenced by their conception of teaching, education and its purpose. Further, as teacher educators uncritically participate in the standards-based movement it becomes impossible for them to entertain alternative perspectives on teaching and education outside of the framework provided to them by the standards.” Delandshere was involved in the earliest iterations of the TPA in CT and removed herself from it when she came to understand that teaching cannot be represented by viewing it in pieces. You might want to listen to an interview I did with her here http://education-radio.blogspot.com/2012/05/standing-up-to-pearson-speaking-out.html
That there is disagreement amongst educators is to be expected, and is good. That one system is being imposed, with the silencing of voices of contestation is deeply problematic. This is the case with edTPA where many of us, who might be heard about tweaking the instrument, are silenced and made powerless about not wanting this instrument at all. Some of us believe that accountability comes in the form of, as I noted earlier, conversations overtime in which we all engage, challenge and debate. Not through scaling up. Conversations, inefficient as they might be, like we are supposed to do in democracy–that great ideal of accountability to each other.
The worst part is when teacher education programs decide to revamp their whole curriculum to teach to this test. In my own program I’m expecting to see things like top-down imposed syllabi. Beverly Falk, in an earlier comment, described how it’s been used at CCNY for a thoughtful, collaborative look at their programs, but I think that ‘s probably relatively rare. It would be as if law school revamped their whole curriculum as bar exam prep.
Law school faculty created their bar exams as an accurate measure of their standards of practice, as did nursing, accounting, etc. This is what professions do, come to agreement on appropriate standards of practice to which they hold themselves and colleagues accountable for the sake of public trust. I just don’t understand what we’re afraid of. As professionals, we are mentoring the next generation of our field and we’re stronger with a commonly held, appropriate standard than anything less. ANCTQ (Alleged National Council of Teacher Quality) is coming your way next week.
It is what professions do, but I maintain that teaching is not, collectively, a profession. Rather it is a craft, or at best an art, applied to the several disciplines of the liberal arts, Language and Literature, Math, Physics, etc. The CCSS don’t seem to me to have a true body of knowledge beneath them. I might be, and I hope I AM wrong, but so far . . .
Amee, i believe that the bar exams are created for each state and need to be studied for as a separate entity from the law school curriculum. And that at least the good law schools don’t teach to the test of the bar exam at all. The EDTPA was developed not by the profession as a whole but by a very small group. The state has, I guess, a right to impose it, but it disturbs me to see programs jumping to become test-prep factories as a matter of course.
The one EdTPA training I went to had videos of a teacher who was technically competent in carrying out lesson and writing stuff to fit the rubrics, but the content of the lessons was unbelievably shallow, even babyish. She got high passing scores.
Eduschoolsuversive, I completely agree with you on programs revamping their curriculum for a test (it’s something I have seen some urban districts do with tests for their own students!)…However, I can tell you that Bev’s observation is more common than uncommon…In fact, if your own program was going to offer top-down, I would suggest getting them connected with Bev or other programs that have used the edTPA to help look at their program.
Just spotted this comment from a month ago. If my program had any interest in listening to my ideas, i wouldn’t be using this particular nom de plume. Top-down means top-down. Sigh.
I’m going to go ahead and throw it out there. This seems a lot like the whole language/phonics debate years ago when Lisa Delpit composed her essay on the silenced dialogue. As she made clear, WL might well work when you come to the game already fluent in the language of the culture of power, but if not, you need direct instruction to achieve proficiency. Without that blend, you disenfranchise those who are not familiar with the codes of the culture of power. I think something similar holds true with teaching: you need a clear and explicit target for what is necessary to have a positive impact on student learning if you hope to hit that target. If left unsaid, you are looking at a crapshoot on whether it will materialize.
A clear and explicit target for what constitutes “good teaching” implies the perpetuation of the dominant culture: social reproduction. “Good teaching” ought to be continually contested in a democratic society aimed toward social justice; it ought to be dialogic and flexible, and shaped by the community of learners. A clear definition of “good teaching” would go a long way toward silencing those whose voices are already muted. A high-stakes assessment of teaching will – as research demonstrates – result in strategic adoption of the norms of the assessment. Educators should know better.
-jg
Is “social justice” the ultimate aim then of a democratic society? Is there any other possible ultimate objective?
Of course the ultimate aim of education is contested; this is the whole point. It is neither easily stated nor defined, and to claim otherwise is misguided – as is the notion of a single set of standards or calibrated assessments. Thank you for emphasizing this. I should have stated it more clearly.
But, of course, you don’t answer the question. What is YOUR contention about the purpose of education? Is it to transmit civilization? To make smart workers? To make good little liberals? Or what? It seems to me that posters owe an answer. Definition is contested. What sneaky cant.
My reply was not meant to be sneaky or disingenuous; I did not feel that I should speak for “a democratic society.” So, if it is a direct answer you seek, I do believe that the aim of education in a democratic society should be to move toward social justice, to seek continuous improvement in human endeavors, to interact with the world in meaningful ways.
To direct your other question, of course there are other possible ultimate objectives, and engaging in addressing these is one of the enduring arguments of our nation.
In this conversation, it is important to note that I am not seeking to implement a standardized assessment that others will be held accountable for. I do not claim to have the answer; for me, education is much more about questions than answers.
And yes, I am proud to be anti-capitalist.
I agree with a lot of learningFirst’s comments about the goals of education, though personally, like many educators, I’m not particularly anti-capitalist. I might frame the goal of education as helping kids to enter adult life equipped to be successful in their work, family, personal, and citizenship lives, which includes both knowledge and habits of mind. But Harlan, you’re edging this iscussion perilously close to Godwin’s Law.
NBCTs are now receiving letters via e-mail encouraging them to apply “to participate in the edTPA National Academy of consultants. The National Academy members will receive edTPA training and then will participate in benchmarking, supervise scoring, provide scoring training (online or face-to-face), local evaluation training and/or implementation support to faculty, clinical supervisors and edTPA scorers. Participants in the Academy will also be certified as national scorers for the assessment thereby lending their wealth of experience and knowledge to maintain rigorous expectations for the profession.”
Direct quote from the e-mail I reveived today. I am tempted to apply just to get more information. I like being subversive from the inside…
Gorlewski states: “Assessments will not be scored by teacher educators; they will be scored by temporary workers paid about $75 per exam.”
Here’s the thing: I know people who are scoring these exams and they ARE teacher educators. Many are teacher trainers at universities while others have mentored teachers. Some are current educators with expertise in the Common Core. With her comment about temporary workers, she seems to imply that any Joe (or Joann) Schmo was chosen to evaluate these portfolios. Pearson does have requirements for their workers, Gorlewski. People who are involved in this important work are the type who serve on state committees for free and read professional journals because they have a passion for education. In other words: these are professional educators evaluating future educators…and we all know that the field needs higher standards in order to garner some respect.
I think of the neophyte teacher, a college graduate, who I mentored last year whose materials were awfully inadequate, at best, and could not determine that 100 divided by 20 resulted in 5 points for each test item. Maybe, if she had developed a portfolio, it would have prepared her for better planning and creating of materials OR let us know that she was not ready to be a teacher who would negatively impact students.
Hi Jay, I hate to break it to you, but a lot of the people assessing the TPAs are not teacher educators. They are not even licensed teachers. I’m a grad student in English at UMass, and I received an email trying to recruit grad students to score the portfolios. English grad students, while trained to teach the university courses that we teach, are not at all trained to teach middle or high school. They are not licensed teachers. Frankly, I think it’s unethical to have unqualified graduate students determining whether or not other graduate students (at the same level in a different department) will pass or fail. What do you think?
Jay, I hate to break this to you, but Joe (or Joann) Schmo will comprise the majority of the readers. Although some are grad students in Curriculum and Instruction, they often have ZERO teaching experience. This is typical for teacher education; jump onto the bandwagon for anything that will somehow quantify what it means to be an “effective” teacher. Let’s not care about whether the instrument has been validated or benchmarked, just use it. As always, our students end up paying the price. Yes, I am a teacher educator who is totally against this latest attempt to “professionalize” teaching. Once again, Pearson is heavily involved in this process. (See Common Core for other Pearson intrusions).
I wonder whether you are are a teacher or just another armchair coach who thinks that “anybody can be a teacher.”
I’m a teacher with very good credentials, and I’ve been hired to grade the edTPA. The application is very specific on what they are looking for. I don’t believe I would have been hired if I need not meet this criteria (Master teacher), but I may be wrong. All I know is that teachers are also grading the edTPA…as it should be.
It shouldn’t exist, period. There should be class-action lawsuits filed against Pearson. This is usurping education programs in colleges and universities. This is all about destroying teaching as a profession.
I am in my third year of teaching and finishing up my Masters degree this month, and I am so thankful that I do NOT need to go through with this! $300?! That’s ridiculous! For starters, being that in undergrad I paid $88 per NYS test to become certified, I then had to pay the state $50 per cert – I paid $200 because I graduated with 4 certifications in teaching. I also think this is ridiculous because I have found that although I was always a confident teacher, even as a student teacher, and had a 4.0 and great comments from my mentors and cooperating teachers, I feel that I am still crafting my art of teaching because you learn more while teaching, not while putting together a portfolio. Which by the way I had to put a portfolio together in undergrad that had over 20 lesson plans in it in several grades, as well as several different classroom settings, along with newsletters I created, rubrics, assessments, and observations I made throughout the school year. I also hope, but highly doubt, that all the scorers are educators, being that those that created the Common Core are not all educators. Lastly, Jay, how can someone be an expert in Common Core, when most of the country is still “figuring it out”. Teaching has become a business, open up your eyes. If they would just let us teach, our students would be better off.
Teacher candidates are already evaluated to death. Teachers are already tested and certified to death. This is nothing but a handout to privatizers.
On the comments about whether teachers are or are not grading the test . . . does anyone have objective, non-anecdotal information? Telling us that you (or someone you know) are a teacher and are grading the exam does not tell us if a *majority* of the graders are education certified or not. That is a key question that is yet to be answered.
Unfortunately, I cannot give you information about the “majority.” What I can tell you is that they are hiring people who are not teacher educators or teachers to score the test. I’m a grad student in English at UMass, and I received an email trying to recruit grad students to score the portfolios. English grad students, while trained to teach the university courses that we teach, are not at all trained to teach middle or high school. They are not licensed teachers. They have never taught in a middle or high school. Frankly, I think it’s unethical to have unqualified graduate students determining whether or not other graduate students (at the same level in a different department) will pass or fail. I know this could sound “anecdotal,” but the email that I received was sent to the entire department listserv, and I know several grads who accepted the position.
Hello all, the following is directly from a recent summary report on edTPA:
Because of the subject-specific nature of edTPA, trainers and scorers must have pedagogical and subject matter
knowledge, including relevant experience in roles that support teaching and learning in the content area and gradelevel
span in which they will score. The pool from which trainers, scoring supervisors, and scorers are recruited include
membership from the following groups:
• University faculty and administrators
• Field supervisors
• Cooperating teachers
• Induction mentors / coaches
• School site principals
• National Board Certified Teachers®
• Subject matter organization members (e.g., NCTM, IRA)
• Retired teachers and principals who are current in their
content field
Amy – do any of your grad students supervise teachers or serve supervisors? That could be a way they are hired.
As someone who has served as a trainer for the edTPA I can assure you that every person that I have trained in my content area were either a professor in higher ed, a current teacher or retired teacher…
jlsumd – No, the grad students in my department (including myself) are supervised and periodically observed by our own mentors (professors). We do not supervise anyone. I am a PhD student myself, so I do have close to 10 years of teaching experience at the university level. However, most grad students are younger. Some MA students are fresh out of college and they are being asked to score for Pearson. Not only are these MA students in their first years of teaching at the university level themselves, but they have no experience or training in the teaching of high school or middle school. I would like to believe that this is an anomaly, but I do think that recruiting graduate students in any circumstance to assess other grad students is unethical.
I suppose that Pearson could argue that grad students are “University faculty,” because we are paid to teach university courses, but I think we are all aware that the status of a grad student doesn’t approach that of a professor. Additionally, I fail to see how even professors in English should be assessing Education grad students. As someone who has gone through both systems (PhD & MA in English, MA in Education), I can say with confidence that my training in the English department toward university teaching and the world of academia in no way qualified me to assess those in the Education department. Until I took a year in the School of Ed., I had no idea what “scaffolding” or other basic concepts were because these pedagogical tools are not part of the university teacher training experience.
Finally, the danger of employing grad students to assess their peers is clear. In my case, which may be rare, I was recruited (as an English grad student) to score edTPAs at the exact same time as I myself was completing the TPA for the school of Ed. Theoretically, I could have scored MY OWN TEST.
It shouldn’t exist, period. ONLY those people directly involved in a person’s student teaching should be doing the evaluating, not some crooked business.
This is a very personal subject ; I am watching someone passionate about teaching spend the fall semester of their senior year negociating the edTAP when they should be focused 100% on their student teaching experience and their journey as a teacher . Producing an acceptable edTAP has become the focus of the student teaching experience … without it you will not do what you set out to do 4 years ago ; become a teacher .
Instead they are watching their fellow students who have already turned in their edTAPs deal with their rejections . This is creating an atmosphere of tension and doubt .
Is this the message we want to provide to prospective teachers ?
Are those evaluating the edTAPs overzealous and over the top with their criticism ?
Is anyone evaluating the evaluators ?
Is it true that even if their Supervising Teacher deems a student teacher worthy of become a teacher , if their edTAPsubmission is rejected , they will be denied their teaching credential ?
I have been a teacher for over 30 years . I believe that along with the necessary education , experience and skills , a talented , effective and gifted teacher will have that intangible something about them that needs to be experienced first hand ; up close and personal.
Will the edTAP recognize such a gift ?
Evaluations and testing serve their purpose but should not be allowed to be the last word on whether a teaching candidate is permitted to pursue their dreams of becoming a teacher .
Would have been nice if the rules of this game had been revealed to these students when they began their teaching journey 4 years ago .
I also feel for the Professors who believe in their students and against their better judgement and need for continued employment .
I welcome feedback and answers to my questions and concerns .
Producing an acceptable edTAP has become the focus of the student teaching experience … without it you will not do what you set out to do 4 years ago; become a teacher. Instead they are watching their fellow students who have already turned in their edTAPs deal with their rejections. This is creating an atmosphere of tension and doubt.
In effect, you are saying that academic freedom at the university level does not exist for persons who are engaged in teacher education or their students whose student teaching course has been preempted by edTPA, a test, and one that needs to be questioned because it has a seal of approval from scholars at Stanford University’s SCALE project and AACTE.
The edTAP is filled with assumptions about the proper role of formal education in the lives of students (transmit academic knowledge), the proper role of the teacher (sage on the stage), the character of an academic discipline (as if this is fixed in time and isolated in a silo), the proper way to teach for academic understanding of an academic discipline (focus on the conventional vocabulary) and convey structure of the discipline (as if there were only one best structure).
This is a vintage 1960s paradigm of teaching that you and your students are being forced to support and not criticize. Key features of this educational philosophy and concept of an academic discipline are in dispute, and should be–especially given the fluid character of knowledge and fact that transmitting academic knowledge is not the only mission of public education.
The level of detail and rationalization called for in the preparation of lessons for the edTPA portfolio are a case of accountability gone wild. The fact that Stanford University and AACTE gave the marketing rights to Pearson makes Pearson the effective gate-keeper for entry into the profession under conditions where quality control is determined by the bottom line of profit.
I urge teacher educators to deconstruct all of these requirements and arrangements. Study the research reports for solid information about the reliability of the edTPA by “discipline” and grade level. Look at claims about the validity of the edTPA and also for the specific “discipline” and grade level. Look at footnotes to see favored sources of scholarship. Ask more questions. Note that the Common Core and other standards are treated as if flawless. Engage your colleagues in this work. I have done enough of this to know that edTPA does not match the marketing hype.
Next generation teachers need to be critically informed, question what they are asked to do. The edTAP hurdle is especially onerous for teachers in the arts and humanities. Indeed, the underlying constructs are riddled with assumptions that might work with conventional academic K-12 teaching from textbooks in science, math, and English–mid-century last.
Stating that teachers are not scoring the edTPA is not completely true. I am a licensed middle school teacher and I AM scoring the edTPA. If you look at applications to score, you have to have your teaching license for a certain number of years, potentially worked as a facilitator or mentor for new teachers or be current/retired college/university faculty. I can’t speak to the qualifications of everyone else, but to say that none of the people scoring are teachers is false. Let’s do our research…
I don’t care if you are. You are NOT the person most qualified to evaluate a teacher candidate. ONLY those directly involved with a student teacher should be involved with the evaluation process, not some stranger who hasn’t a clue about the particular teacher or the school.
You apology for this is disgusting.
I’m doing the edTPA right now, and it is my opinion that the extra time and work that it it requires on top of what is already being asked of me as a student teacher is overwhelming. I feel that the edTPA is making my learning of the craft of teaching much more difficult and confusing than it would be without it. I feel patronized by some of the questions and tasks that the edTPA is asking me…. I hope change comes soon, because this thing is out-of-control confusing and ridiculous. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
I am doing edTPA now and it is extemely complicated. No one knows exactly what they have to do (including professors and representatives from the state). I have passed every single certification test on the first try (which now all cost over $100 a test), but still may not get certified because of edTPA (which does in fact cost $300). Student teachers doing it this year are the guinea pigs which is why it does not have a high pass rate. It is simply unfair and has ruined my student teacher experience because instead of being allowed to focus on becoming the best teacher I can be, all of my life is consumed by edTPA.
This has been my experience as well. Yet no one is really listening. No wonder more people leave the profession then stay with it.
I am currently a student teacher in NYS, and a guinea pig by all means. Not only do I have the edTPA to worry about, which I have to hand into my “classroom management” class to pass by the end of the semester, but I had to complete it during the placement that has adopted the common core scripted modules. And let me tell you, the edTPA does NOT align with the modules whatsoever. Funny, seeming as the state seems to think they have a handle on how teachers should teach, yet their state certification assessments completely go against them. It is an absolute nightmare. On top of it, it doesn’t help that I have no staff support since no one from my college has submitted the edTPA yet. The state doesn’t seem to grasp the overall point of student teaching. Student teachers are LEARNING. This is our time to make mistakes, try strategies and form relationships with staff and students. I don’t appreciate how the state assumes that I have all of this crazy knowledge pertaining to what THEY want to see. I love teaching, I want to continue to love teaching; I don’t understand why I’m being punished for wanting to be part of the education system.
I’m currently a student teacher as well. As one of my mentors told me about edTPA, “If they wanted to create a way to deter someone from teaching in public schools, they’ve done a great job of it with this thing.”
It is by far the most confusing assessment I’ve experienced in an academic setting (one of the very things they’re assessing, ironically enough). Does the state really have so little confidence in its teacher prep programs?
What makes it so confusing? It looks at what a teacher should be doing every day – planning, instructing and assessing…
The repetitiveness of the prompts, the new jargon it’s introducing, the opaqueness of the assessment process, and the lack of clarity on expectations…that makes it a confusing assessment. We do years of work on planning, instruction, and assessment in our teacher prep programs. What’s the point of having the test? It flattens out nuance in our prep programs and creates unnecessary stress in teacher candidates.
I wish folks would research before they criticize. While the edTPA is costly, it does ensure that there is a standard level of competency among our teachers. I am not a grad student or a joe schmo. I have a Masters degree, 14 years of teaching undergraduate sciences and health sciences, and I conduct the review sessions for my state’s teacher certification.
All of our critiques of the edTPA boil down to saying that the edTPA DOES NOT AND CAN NOT assure a standard of level of competency. We disagree with what you take for granted. Each critic of the edTPA has a slightly different way of thinking about why the edTPA does not only does not ensure a standard level of competence but in fact leads to lowering of the quality of teaching.
I would be grateful if you would try an experiment. Go back to the beginning of this blog. Read the critiques of the edTPA sympathetically, as if the critics are intelligent thoughtful people concerned about the future of this society. Write a paraphrase of what each critic is saying. That is, share your understanding of each of the critiques (WITHOUT EVALUATING THEM). Then let us know what you think of each criticism you have identified and why.
I’d be very interested to read what you have to say..
Thanks for your consideration
Terri, I have B.A.s in English and Education and an M.A. in Literacy Teaching. I have 11 years of experience in K-12 settings. I taught elementary students for 7 years. I taught MS/HS English for 4 years. I am now a literacy coach, supervising teachers. But guess what? I would still refuse to evaluate a student’s edTPA. Why? Because I am not qualified. The ONLY people who should be evaluating these are teacher educators, particularly those who are connected to the students.
annberlack – you are right. edTPA cannot guarantee a standard level of competency…while I did not have the time to complete your exercise, in scanning many of the comments from the critics, I have found a few common themes.
1. The involvement of Pearson – many attack the assessment because of the involvement of a company…and they make assumptions on the scorers because of the involvement of the company
2. The need for consistency – some argue that there isn’t a need for consistency amongst teachers; that their programs are doing just fine…if all programs were doing “fine” there wouldn’t be a need for this type of assessment…
3. The qualifications of the scorers – many have wrongly stated that the scorers are not qualified due to their content, etc. this response is given even if there are some on this list that note they are qualified to score their portfolios. it also does not address the detailed training a scorer must go through..
4. Using edTPA for certification – many here are from NY state…and have discussed the critique of using edTPA for certification purposes. Again, the frustration with the state policy is redirected at the assessment. If NY state had done what many other states have done and staggered implementation of the assessment, would that be better?
I recognize that many of those posting, particularly the students, do care about teaching.. And they are real human beings. and they are frustrated. but I ask you to complete your homework assignment looking at the same themes. We who may state positives about the assessment are also humans, who also care about teachers. etc.
I am very familiar with edTPA. After retiring from thirty years of teaching, I now work at Ohio University as an Adjunct Instructor for Early and Middle Childhood Education. I am also a Clinical Educator (University Supervisor) for Professional Interns, and serve as Ohio University’s edTPA Coordinator.
I have also worked for Pearson as an edTPA scorer. Additionally, I have consensus scored and helped to benchmark the Middle Childhood Science edTPA.
No one likes change. We all resist it, especially if it causes more work and/or more stress to us. But if you stay in education long enough, you will find that change is inevitable. We in education are always striving to improve, and that involves critical self-reflection and the willingness to make changes in how we do things.
edTPA is no different. It is a change in how we think about evaluating our teacher candidates, because it is asking them to evaluate themselves. It asks teacher candidates to look hard at what they are doing in the classroom, and make sure they are doing it in the best manner possible. edTPA does not demand perfection; it demands competency and a disposition to improve when necessary.
Take a close look at what edTPA asks teacher candidates to do. In Task 1, they are required to plan three to five lessons. Teacher candidates are expected to plan these lessons based on state standards as well as knowledge of their students’ prior academic learning, developmental assets, and personal, cultural, and community assets. While it is time-consuming, it is also a valuable exercise for novice teachers and what will be expected of them as classroom teachers.
Task 2 requires teacher candidates to TEACH their lessons. Yes, it must be video-taped, which can be uncomfortable for the candidate. Parents must sign a permission slip for their children to be included in this. In the Instruction Commentary, teacher candidates are asked how they engaged their students while providing a safe, challenging learning environment. They are also asked what changes they could make to improve student learning.
Finally, Task 3 asks teacher candidates to analyze student work to determine how well the students understand the concepts taught and to determine what the next steps in instruction should be. They must also give students feedback to guide improvement.
These are all activities that good teachers do on a daily basis. It is not an arbitrary measure of unnecessary skills.
One argument that has been put forth against edTPA is that it is not evaluated by qualified people. Pearson hires P-12 teachers and teacher educators in a 50/50 ratio. In order to be hired, scorers must be subject matter experts (teach or supervise student teachers in the field they intend to score) with experience mentoring/supervising teacher candidates. No one scores without subject matter expertise. Among the P-12 teachers hired to score, over 1/3 are National Board Certified Teachers.
Am I claiming that the edTPA is perfect? Of course not. No assessment is perfect. However, as it says in the edTPA description on http://edtpa.aacte.org: “edTPA can be integrated with other teacher candidate assessments such as clinical evaluations, embedded signature assessments, and content knowledge examinations to guide and support program improvement, inform program completion, or as a metric for licensure.” edTPA is not asking teacher candidates to change their instruction, but rather provide an in-depth reflection on necessary aspects of successful teaching and learning.
Ilbuskirk claims, “(The edTPA) is a change in how we think about evaluating our teacher candidates, because it is asking them to evaluate themselves.”
This is simply not true. At best one might say that edTPA evaluates the teachers self-evauations.
Ilbuskirk claims, “(The three tasks) are all activities that good teachers do on a daily basis. (They are) not an arbitrary measure of unnecessary skills.”
The edTPA (as others have pointed out) can not assess these activities in any meaningful way. It is an invalid and unreliable measure. This system of measuring represents a particular (and in the view of TPAA critics) understanding of teaching and the purposes of education. The skills the edTPA attempts to measure marginalize other” skills” that in the view of many of us are more central to pedagogy that promotes the creation of a just and joyful world. When the edTPA is the final standard for getting a credential, it is the tail that wags the dog. Again, this has been pointed out in this blog and elsewhere by countless others.
The defenders of the edTPA have fundamentally different world views and views of the purposes of schooling from those of its critics. The critics can identify the defenders’ assumptions and claims with which they disagree. I wonder if the defenders can identify these differences. Doing so would be a useful step toward dialogue .
You sound like you’re a qualified teacher. I’m sure it would be helpful to have you as an instructor. However, how much constructive feedback do you think you can provide to teacher candidates in New York whom you’ve never met using the 15 rubrics included in edTPA? “Qualified people” is a relative term. You’re clearly a qualified educator. But should you be determining who can teach in New York state?
This is our criticism. It’s not about us fearing change or about not wanting to do more work. We simply don’t see the point of the test. And by all appearances, given its huge price tag, its principal objective seems to be to take money from us and give to Pearson.
San Jose State University has something of an equivalent (PACT: Performance Assessment for California Teachers), and what I find ironic about the whole thing is that you have two chances, two tries to get it right, to make it. Then, you are disqualified from the program which means that you do not receive your credential. Which, I feel, sort of runs counter to what I learned in the program, about formative feedback, among other things. It seems absurd that after two tries, all of those classes, all the work you’ve put into student teaching is brought to an abrupt end. It just doesn’t seem right, honestly. Does that seem right to you? Especially if the master teachers are not in the room more than half of the time to offer guidance. Especially when university faculty seem to give off the impression that they can’t really help you with much, that you must be the one doing it. Especially when it’s not entirely clear what constitutes as a non-passing PACT. What happened to emphasizing formative feedback as a way to ensure success?
Phase2studentteacher, I would say that PACT (or edTPA) doesn’t run counter to the idea of formative assessment. I am pretty certain that in between the first and the second try that you do get some feedback and support on completing the PACT, right? In terms of the master teacher not being in the room to offer guidance, that sounds like a specific situation as opposed to the norm, but even if it were the norm, the reality is that next year you or anyone else who is a teacher candidate will be on their own the entire time. The edTPA or PACT should be your own work…
The harsh reality is that everyone should not be a teacher. It’s a tough reality to swallow, particularly when a candidate has paid lots of money for classes, etc. But just because you have done student teaching, should one simply say, “Sure, its ok for you to teach” That mindset has been one of the reasons we are in the dilemma we are in now – as too often in education we let folks go on…How would you feel is the surgeon that was operating on you was deemed unfit by his evaluators, but was given the ok to become a surgeon because he/she had taken out so many loans for medical school??
JSLteach’s misguided and condescending statement boggles the mind.
He or she says, “But just because you have done student teaching, should one simply say, ‘Sure, its ok for you to teach’ That mindset has been one of the reasons we are in the dilemma we are in now – as too often in education we let folks go on…”
You have absolutely no understanding of the many points of evaluation that are already part of teacher education programs. These assessments are with very rare exceptions done by people who know the context in which the student is teaching, and the students the candidate is teaching. There is no one size fits all standard that can be reliable and validly assessed by people who have only the most superficial understanding of the setting, the students, and the classroom in which the credential candidate is teaching.
Unqualified teachers are much more likely to be identified by their teacher educators than by the edTPA.
JSLteach asks,” How would you feel is the surgeon that was operating on you was deemed unfit by his evaluators, but was given the ok to become a surgeon because he/she had taken out so many loans for medical school.”
Simply posing this questions shows his or her complete ignorance of the process of becoming a teacher.
Anncberlak – you are incorrect. I do know the process of becoming a teacher. I went through a graduate school of education. I was observed. And I took tests to be assessed (I graduated during the pre-praxis era of assessments yet in a state that had its own standardized tests. And no where in my statement did I say that observations should NOT be included. I never stated that edTPA or PACT or any other assessment should be the only decision.
The question becomes if the person was deemed unfit by the teacher educators, why are they making it to edTPA? As someone who had supervised student teachers both in my classroom and as part of a teacher education program, I can say that many students who have no business teaching make it through teacher ed programs. In fact, I was one told point blank that the school hoped I would not sign off on the student because the university didn’t want the student to get a license under their name.
There is no perfect solution. Outside observers may be too disconnected to make accurate assessments. Teacher ed faculty may be too connected (or be worried about the impacts of student failure on performance reviews) to see the real faults. Supervising teachers may be so worried about their students’ test scores to let the student teacher fail. The in class observers may have so little time to observe that
they never get a realistic picture of the student teacher’s ability. All evaluations are flawed. As such I think the more perspectives from which a student teacher is observed, the more likely it is that poor teachers will be identified early.
As for the tasks… Frankly, I think it’s good to have to meet a different set of standards than you were used to. When I was teaching, every principal I worked for expected different things in terms of lesson plans and other paperwork. Even if this is not evaluating exactly what it claims to, it’s still a useful activity to be evaluated on someone else’s expectations because that’s part of dealing with parents. It’s also good preparation for dealing with formalized teacher evaluations when you often have to provide the same sort of documentation. (Whether or not that’s good is another story. It is, however a reality.)
No, but when the edTPA is the last word, it supersedes and distorts program assessments which are by definition given lower status. I apologize. I see that you are familiar with the assessment procedure of the credential program you attended. I suppose you simply don’t trust faculty like the ones who taught you and have no respect for the system of assessments you had at the school where you were certified, i.e. you have more confidence in being assessed by a written test by assessors who have no context for evaluating you than the assessments of your teacher education faculty. What conception of teaching underlies the eagerness to have prospective teachers assessed by a multinational corporation?
Ann – Thank you for the apology – I accept. But I want to add a few things…It’s not that I didn’t trust the faculty where I was taught – but I know that I was observed maybe two or three times. My “portfolio” was one where I made a nice notebook of lesson plans, assessments, etc. It was more important that it looked nice and neat. In some schools, I know that they are using edTPA as the portfolio – to me this is a HUGE step forward – having a portfolio that focuses on teaching.
One note – the teachers are NOT assessed by the corporation – they are assessed by K-12 educators and members of the IHE community – not by random employees of the corporation.
One other note on the context – I have worked in districts where their teacher evaluations make no point in terms of assessment. An observer can come into a classroom, see a child with his or her head on the desk, and dock the teacher on the observation – there is no space where the teacher can explain that the student is dealing with a crisis at home, etc. edTPA, on the other hand, offers a Context for Learning. Does it offer everything? No. but I think that it does allow a candidate to provide the context that you keep talking about – they can discuss if their school is in a high poverty area – they can share that they have few supplies, or that they are forced to use a certain curriculum.
You seem to be saying that your own teacher education and the teacher education programs you are familiar with were inadequate and did not provide the assets you think the edTPA provides. I personally do not think that the edTPA will improve inadequate programs, and that it will interfere with the quality of high quality programs. I now realize that you can’t fathom why many of us think that the edTPA and its predecessor PACT interfere with the development of a profession that is dedicated to social justice and the empowerment of students.
I have no confidence in that edTPA assessments by my most esteemed colleagues or myself could be valid assessments of the abilities of teachers. I would trust myself and these colleagues working together to do a performance assessment that is far more valuable and fair than the standardized one. And because someone has taught doesn’t necessarily give them the right to evaluate prospective teachers. I see many people justifying Pearson’s choices of assessors by claiming that they have taught. Experienced teachers are not necessarily good ones, as I’m sure you will agree. They shouldn’t be deciding the fate of others just because they are experienced.
I have two B.A.s and an M.A., all related to teaching. I have 11 years of successful teaching experience, where my all my students (every single one) passed their standardized exams with high scores every year. I completed my student-teaching program 12 years ago, where I had to complete a comprehensive portfolio of lesson plans, unit plans, individual education plans, behavioral plans, and reflections. These portfolios we completed were so large, they had to be carried in tubs. I was observed by the supervising teacher every day for six weeks and by my supervising professor every week for nine weeks. I was video-taped three times. I had glowing reviews both from my student-teacher supervisors and principals from the schools I’ve taught at for the past 11 years.
But to teach in New York and get my certificate through reciprocity, I have to complete an edTPA. What I’ve done and accomplished isn’t enough. I have to pay $300 for this evaluation and be assessed by people who might not even have as many years of experience as I do.
I am a student teacher who received 37 out of 75 on my edTPA. To give you some perspective, I received a 188 out of 200 on the Principles of Teaching and Learning and a 165 out of 200 (139 was passing) on the Content Knowledge: Integrated Mathematics assessment.
If I wanted to appeal my score, it would have cost me $200. Yep. Now you may ask why I would want to appeal my score. The scores I received on rubrics 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 were all 2s.
The specific feedback I received for rubric 4:Identifying and Supporting Language Demands is,
“Candidate identifies vocabulary and/or symbols as the major language demand associated with the language function. Attention to additional language demands is superficial. Language supports primarily address definitions of vocabulary and/or symbols.”
Remember that this is for mathematics…..algebra actually…..
The edTPA’s official definitions that I had to use from which to interpret how to write my responses for my edTPA are:
Academic language: Oral and written language used for academic purposes. Academic language is the means by which students develop and express content understandings. Academic language represents the language of the discipline that students need to learn and use to participate and engage in meaningful ways in the content area. There are language demands that teachers need to consider as they plan to support student learning of content. These language demands include vocabulary, language functions, syntax, and discourse.
Discourse: Discourse includes the structure of written and oral language, as well as how members of the discipline talk, write, and participate in knowledge construction. Discipline-specific discourse has distinctive features or ways of structuring oral or written language (text structures) that provide useful ways for the content to be communicated. In mathematics, language structures include symbolic representations such as numbers, equations, two-column proofs (which can be translated into words), graphic representation (which is shorthand language for complex sets of data), and narrative (e.g., to describe or compare). If the language function is to prove, then appropriate language structures include formal two-column proofs as well as informal explanations that begin with a statement of the problem and known information, followed by a series of statements like “And then, I know ________ because _______,” ending with what is to be proved.
language demands: Specific ways that academic language (vocabulary, functions, discourse, syntax) is used by students to participate in learning tasks through reading, writing, listening, and/or speaking to demonstrate their disciplinary understanding.
language functions: The content and language focus of the learning task represented by the active verbs within the learning outcomes. Common language functions in mathematics include describing mathematical phenomena; predicting from models and data; comparing based on common attributes; summarizing mathematical information; justifying conclusions; evaluating data, models, and mathematical representations; classifying based on attributes; explaining phenomena and processes; drawing conclusions based on data; representing mathematical information; and so on.
syntax: The set of conventions for organizing symbols, words, and phrases together into structures (e.g., sentences, graphs, tables).
Vocabulary: Includes words and phrases that are used within disciplines including: (1) words and phrases with subject-specific meanings that differ from meanings used in everyday life (e.g., table); (2) general academic vocabulary used across disciplines (e.g., compare, analyze, evaluate); and (3) subject-specific words defined for use in the discipline.
I guess manipulating equations, creating tables, finding max/min and roots, and graphing functions is nothing but vocabulary and symbols???? I guess there is no syntax or discourse in that according to edTPA’s definitions because mathematics is mostly communicated through nothing but words and using symbols, especially in algebra, is just superficial because the abstract use of such symbols is nothing but child’s play for the average ninth grader. To put this in perspective, I was recently given documents on each of the domains in the Common Core State Standards and most of the standards within each domain were listed as levels 1 and 2 on the Depth Of Knowledge scale. Ha! If that is the case, then how could any lesson I or any math teacher construct meet the demands of the edTPA?
Surely all you reading this know that as a student teacher I’m totally allowed to say the heck with the school’s pacing guide and choose whatever lesson I want to teach just to make sure it aligns with the edTPA’s super clear and super precise definitions. My language function was representing. The students were required to do all the things in the lessons and assessments according to the pacing guide and CCSS’s in the pacing guide developed by the mathematics department. I guess I should have told all those teachers that they were wrong because my extensive knowledge acquired being a college student surely surpassed their many years of teaching. Perhaps I should mention that as a student teacher (and many other student teachers like me) I am required to use previous lessons created by my CT as the basis from which to develop my lessons in order to teach her students. I would try to rewrite these lessons in a way I thought would cover all the edTPA requirements, but I would have to revise them in such a way that they ended up varying little from the original versions I was given. I am a student teacher. I cannot do whatever I want in the classroom just because edTPA wants me to do something a certain way. Please note: I am not dissing my CT. It is after all called student teaching for a reason. My CT is my main instructor day in and day out. I mean edTPA, really? What control over the situation do you think I really have? News flash edTPA: I am JUST a student teacher.
The specific feedback I received for rubric 5:Planning Assessment to Monitor and Support Student Learning is,
“The assessments provide limited evidence to monitor students’ conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, AND mathematical reasoning and/or problem solving skills during the learning segment. Assessment adaptations required by IEP or 504 plans are made.”
The assessments I used were the ones I was REQUIRED to use by my cooperating teacher. Please note, I am not dissing my CT. She’s a good teacher and knows how to develop appropriate materials that are grade level appropriate and aligned with the standards. In case you are curious, the host school I’m at is one of the top high schools in the entire state where I live and is in the top 10% nationally. Yep, you read that correctly. Top 10% nationally. I think she knows a thing or two about teaching and doing it well and rejected my original lessons for a reason.
After reading the requirements, I tried to add open-ended questions to the assessments, but I was not allowed to change the format of her assessments other than using different numbers in the problems. Her reasoning was that after years of teaching students she has found that open-ended questions cause more confusion and didn’t really help the grade level I was teaching learn how to do the mathematics. I am a student teacher. Who am I to tell my CT how assessments should be written? And I wrote all of that in the Planning for Instruction document so that they could understand the restrictions that were placed upon me because, after all, I AM ONLY A STUDENT TEACHER!!! I CANNOT DO WHATEVER I WANT IN THE CLASSROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION!!!!!!
I could go on but you can probably guess the reason I was given 2’s on the other rubrics. Any one who teachers math knows that if something is not “right” in the beginning, it affects the following steps. What did edTPA expect me to do? Tell my successful CT that her lesson plans, which I was required to use to develop my lessons, were “passé” and that she doesn’t know the new way to teach? Wow, wouldn’t that have made my student teaching a totally awesome experience!?!?!?!?!?!
Truth be told many of the current teachers I’ve met do not understand the depth of which the edTPA is asking us neophytes to plan instruction, teach and assess. They think it’s just a rehash of Praxis III. From what I’ve been told about Praxis III, edTPA is nothing like it.
Thank you for sharing your experience. This is exactly why the edTPA is not a good measure of competency. This so-called objective measure doesn’t take a multitude of factors into consideration. I’m sure many successful teachers in high-performing schools would not pass the edTPA because it is measuring something through ideas that are not validated as producing improved student outcomes.
Wasn’t all that a BLAST? Trying to run around dodging the mines and pitfalls. That’s edTPA in a nutshell. You have to read, re-read and RE-READ AGAIN to ensure that you comply with ALL requirements: “Did I include syntax? Discourse? Academic vocab? Are the kids using these things? OMG did it go BEYOND the two page MAX limit?” (hyperventilate) and given its newness, you really can’t get much help or support from the college, mentor teacher or supervisor. Ours just asked, “guiding questions” because they had their hands tied behind their backs too. I submitted and got a 64/90. Quite interestingly enough, my college, with whom I had issues (they kept harassing me for speaking my mind), ASKED me to use mine as a sample for other student teachers? Classy, guys. I said “yes” to help the team. I also published ALL my assignments on my personal blog because I remember what it was like going in blind. We had NO examples of what a “successful” edTPA even looked like. Thanks Pearson. -_-
So glad it’s over now.
Rob Leabo
Robert_Leabo@hotmail.com
NYS Teacher and BAT 2014
edTPA is garbage! It’s absolutely pure and utter trash. It’s a waste of time and money! I had to complete it to get licensed in NYS. After working tirelessly on it, tearing through the handbook to ensure that I gave Pearson everything it requested, I paid $300 (because they NEED that money) and submitted it. Then I waited. I received my score report one month later and fortunately I passed. With quite a high score in fact. Way beyond the minimum “cut score,” which is an arbitrary number anyway. Am I a better teacher because I was successful at edTPA? NO! I’m a successful teacher because I can relate to my kids; I care about them, their interests, and try to adapt my lessons to make them interesting, educational and relate to the kids’ lives. edTPA could have been better without all the verbose and unnecessarily terminology and prompts. Just cut to the chase guys, “Was this lesson sucessful? Why or why not?” And “What would you have changed?” Etc. Instead of examining “academic language” and a myriad of other pointless drivel and ensuring you comply with the requirements: Is the spacing ok? The font? Did I keep it to TWO PAGES MAX? Those are definitely things that we need to worry about. I’m so glad I am NOW a licensed teacher because it’s going to be harder as Pearson tightens its grip on public education in the United States. And of course we have lackluster leadership, especially in NY, so that doesn’t help. Right John King and Merryl Tisch?
Rob Leabo
Robert_Leabo@hotmail.com
NYS Teacher and BAT 2014!
Rob, Well said!!!
I am reading many comments. Unfortunately, many of the criticisms offered are lackluster and without concrete evidence. Pearson is only used as an administrator of the test, just as they are other national exams (GRE, GMAT, Praxis, etc). They did not create the EdTPA and are not trying to swindle you out of $300 because they need it. Standford University, a top university, created the assessment. See below.
“Stanford University faculty and staff at the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) developed edTPA, formerly the Teacher Performance Assessment. They received substantive advice and feedback from teachers and teacher educators and drew from experience gained from over 25 years of developing performance-based assessments of teaching (including the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) Standards portfolio, and the Performance Assessment for California Teachers). The design and review team was comprised of more than 100 university faculty, national subject-matter organization representatives (e.g., NCTM, NCTE, NSTA, etc.), and K-12 teachers.”
There are no random people scoring EdTPA portfolios. Trust me. Even if someone was invited, there is a lengthy qualification process and anyone who should not be scoring would obviously be released. There is also a very extensive training process and consistent evaluation of scorers to ensure that student portfolios are scored accurately, consistently, and according to the task rubrics. Honestly, after teaching nearly 10 years and going through several evaluations of classroom teaching, the EdTPA is not much different than a good classroom observation.
My two cents: If you are against having your practice as an educator evaluated, you’re in the wrong profession. In your school you will be evaluated by peers, assistant principals, principals, coaches, etc. and to top it all off, they too could be using the same rubric yet have a difference of opinion in “your” method of instruction. Since we are all human, the method itself will not be perfect, but at least they are working towards consistency. I actually applaud the ones who decided that good teaching should start before candidates are placed in the classroom. While progressive development is an ongoing process, candidates should not have the attitude where they will perfect their craft after they finish school and other licensure exams. Unlike many jobs, your expertise, or lack of will have an effect on many students’ lives. Therefore, applying essential core principles as a teacher candidate will make it that much more habitual when you’re finally in the classroom full-time.
To this comment, “After reading the requirements, I tried to add open-ended questions to the assessments, but I was not allowed to change the format of her assessments other than using different numbers in the problems. Her reasoning was that after years of teaching students she has found that open-ended questions cause more confusion and didn’t really help the grade level I was teaching learn how to do the mathematics” my response to you is…yes/no questions are in no way worthy of developing students’ conceptual understanding, or reasoning/problem-solving skills–not in K-12, or at any grade level. I teach at the middle level and the college level and only providing yes, no, or other closed response questions is a huge no-no in every discipline area. Perhaps as the EdTPA becomes widely used as an assessment tool, faculty members, mentors, candidates, CT’s, etc. will be well-versed on the criteria so they can help candidates prepare better for the assessment.
At the end of the day, it is what it is and criticism will not help anyone pass this assessment. The best resolution to the problem is to understand what’s needed and rise to the occasion
I was a tenured Phys Ed teacher in NY from 1997-2002 and I taught 1 year out of state before changing careers and working in the private sector for 5 years. In 2008 I was asked by my former Superintendent to take over the Phys. Ed. program at an Alternative School for boys. I have been teaching Phys. Ed. for the past 6 years. During this time I have been working on completing my masters in order to regain my certification. I will have all class work done by October and just found out I need to take this EdTPA Assessment. It hard to believe they didn’t provide exemptions for folks who have already proven themselves in the classroom. I have11 years of real life teaching experience in NYS. Now Im being treated like a “novice” teacher and my current employment is going to fall into the hands of some employee at Pearsons. Has anyone heard of any exemptions from this test for people who have proven themselves in the classroom for 11 years and counting? Thanks!
I just finished going through EdTPA. it was the worst experience I had the misfortune to undergo. The whole process is a sham. Instead of creating a nurturing environment to introduce prospective teachers into the teaching experience, this ordeal was worse than bootcamp. What has happened to the education ideals of this country? How can so many be fooled by Pearson?